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THE DEAN OE WOMEN 



BY 

LOIS KIMBALL MATHEWS, Ph.D. 

Dean of Women and Associate Professor of History 
in the University of Wisconsin 




BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO 

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 



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COPYRIGHT, I915, BY LOIS KIMBALL MATHEWS 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



O^tie Sliberdttie $re)S« 

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



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©CI,A401385 



TO THE MEMORY 

OF MISS AGNES IRWIN 

DEAN OF RADCLIFFE COLLEGE 

1894-1909 

THIS LITTLE BOOK IS DEDICATED 
IN LOVE AND GRATITUDE 



FOREWORD 

This book upon the position of the dean of 
women is, I believe, the first to appear upon 
this phase of educational work. With the mul- 
titude of books upon almost every aspect of 
education, this fact in itself is significant. The 
position of dean of women is a new one ; the 
duties relating to the post have not been de- 
fined ; they are in rapid flux ; they are not the 
same in one institution as they are in another. 
Dean Lois Kimball Mathews clearly analyzes 
the qualifications for the position, the oppor- 
tunities offered by it, and what may be accom- 
plished through it. 

The book is written primarily from the co- 
educational point of view. The report of the 
United States Commissioner of Education for 
1913 shows that the number of women in co- 
educational universities and colleges was some- 
what more than 73,000, and in women's col- 
leges was in excess of 24,000. In addition to 
the above there were about 1300 women in the 
graduate schools and in special courses in the 



vi FOREWORD 

colleges which are regarded as exclusively for 
men. Therefore the treatment covers the prob- 
lem of the dean of women for three fourths of 
the women in higher institutions of learning. 

The judicial student of education cannot 
but appreciate the superior advantages of the 
coeducational institutions in certain respects, 
and of the women's colleges in other respects. 
However, it is clear that the duties of the dean 
of women in a coeducational institution are of 
a more difficult character than in the women's 
colleges; for, in addition to considering the 
strictly collegiate aspects of work, curricular 
and extra-curricular, the vastly complex social 
problem enters. 

That there are benefits in wholesome asso- 
ciation of men and women in the classroom 
can scarcely be doubted. That there are mu- 
tual benefits in reasonable social intercourse 
cannot be questioned ; but, as with other good 
things, there is a tendency to excess on the 
part of many. This tendency results in regu- 
lation and restraint; and these always present 
difficult problems. 

The vivid description by Dean Mathews of 
the existing situation for women in higher 



FOREWORD vii 

educational institutions and her clear discus- 
sion of the problems arising in connection 
with this situation cannot but be of ofreat 
assistance to the deans of women who are 
struggling to clarify their ideas, define their 
authority, and secure definite results. 

Charles R. Van Hise, 
President of the University of Wisconsin. 

Madison, Wisconsin, 
April, 1915. 



CONTENTS 

I. The Dean of Women: Her Position 1 

II. The Problem of Living Conditions, 
and their relation to social 
Conditions 40 

III. The Problem of Student Employ- 

ment 90 

IV. Vocational Guidance .... 108 

V. Self-Go vernment Associations . . 127 ^" 
VI. The Social Life of Students . . 150 
VII. Problems of Student Discipline . 173 
VIII. The Intellectual Life of Students 190 

IX. Conclusion 213 

Appendix ....... 229 



THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

CHAPTER I 

THE DEAN OF WOMEN: HER POSITION 

There is in almost every coeducational in- 
stitution in the United States an official whose 
chief duty is usually vaguely stated to be 
" the care and supervision of women stu- 
dents." So unstandardized is the position 
this official occupies that even the title varies 
from that of " dean of women " to " adviser 
of women/' "preceptress/' or even "lady 
principal " ; furthermore^ in one case at least, 
the " dean of women " is a man ! The posi- 
tion itself is often but that of an apotheosized 
chaperon ; it varies from the place of an ad- 
ministrative officer, on a par in importance 
and dignity with deans of the various colleges 
which make up the whole university, to the 
mere presence in a community of a gracious 
and charming woman who " loves girls." 

The duties of the position likewise run a 
gamut of all known relations which an older 



2 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

woman bears toward young men and women, 
from those of a lecturer in the classroom to those 
of a housekeeper in a dormitory. The position 
is never the same in any two institutions, nor 
has it usually many points of resemblance to 
the deanship in those colleges whose student 
body is made up exclusively of women. The 
injunction ordinarily given to a new incum- 
bent is, "Go ahead and make of the position 
what you can. There are no prescribed du- 
ties." And the new appointee wanders from 
institution to institution to see what other 
deans of women are making of their positions, 
finally bringing up at her own office door in 
a pitiable state of bewilderment and discour- 
agement. The few who have brought the 
position to any sort of standard and real 
organization are besieged by letters and calls 
from others who have entered or are just 
entering the work, and even from a few hardy 
and enthusiastic young souls who desire "to 
prepare to be deans of women." The present 
discussion is meant rather to be suggestive of 
new points of view and provocative of thought 
and argument than as a jeremiad, or to settle 
for all time any problem. 



THE DEAN OF WOMEN 3 

It is difficult for us who take the higher edu- 
cation of women as a matter of course to real- 
ize how recently the groups of college and 
university women have come in large numbers 
into the community. Half a century covers 
almost the span of it, and twenty-five years 
would inclose the period of tremendous growth 
in the number of women going to college. 
The first students in the colleges exclusively 
for women (like Vassar), or the first women in 
the coeducational institutions (like Oberlin), 
betook themselves to those walls because of a 
passionate eagerness for learning, or because 
of the necessity of bread-winning. Going to 
college was not a fashionable pursuit, and 
the seminary or finishing school was believed 
by most parents to meet in ample measure the 
intellectual and social needs of their daugh- 
ters. So long as young women went to college 
with a serious purpose, the problem of disci- 
pline was negligible, and the few pranks that 
were played were easily punished by the presi- 
dent of the institution. About twenty-five 
years ago, however, a change in the character 
of student bodies became evident. Although 
the number of serious-minded students was as 



4 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

large in the aggregate, it was reduced rela- 
tively by the influx o£ a large number of 
young people whose parents had resources in 
wealth and in leisure, and who felt, often 
vaguely enough, that the effects of a college 
education were desirable. The era had begun 
of those who came "for the college life " 
(meaning, usually, every thing outside the class- 
room !) or because of social aspiration, or what 
not. 

Coincident with the surging in of this 
tidal wave of irresponsible joyousness came a 
change in the character of the faculty, espe- 
cially in the women's colleges. The demands 
for teachers who had higher degrees, who 
had done graduate work abroad, who were 
competent to carry on research work and 
publish books, became keener, and since no 
one person could do all things, the faculty be- 
came more concerned with the intellectual 
aspects and less with the disciplinary side of 
college life. Just at the time, therefore, when 
the problem of the moral, spiritual, and social 
life of the students was becoming more com- 
plex, the intimate relation between pupil and 
teacher was breaking down. When students 



THE DEAN OF WOMEN 5 

in women's colleges petitioned for self-gov- 
ernment it was granted with a good deal of 
readiness, not only because of its theoretical 
value, but also because of its practical advan- 
tages. The inauguration of self-government 
associations marked a new era in college ad- 
ministration, because it brought in a different 
method of handling student problems, at a time 
when those problems were partaking of the 
rapidly increasing complexity of our whole 
social life. 

Just as the composition of the student body 
in the women's college changed, so did the 
group of women students in coeducational in- 
stitutions take on a different character. In 
addition to the sober-minded young woman 
who came to get an education like that of her 
brothers, there came in the "social butterfly," 
the seeker for " culture " without intellectual 
labor, the "superman." The college began to 
reflect the relaxed discipline of the family, the 
lowered spiritual tone of many communities, 
the complicated problems of inexperienced, 
unrestrained young men and women thrown 
together socially without adequate guidance. 
Parents began to criticize the state univer- 



6 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

sities especially for lack of supervision of 
women students and to compare them unfavor- 
ably in that regard with Eastern women's col- 
leges. Self-government associations like those 
in the women's colleges where every student 
is ipso facto sl member of the organization 
were unknown in coeducational institutions. 
Committees of the faculty dealt with student 
problems, often without any large enthusiasm, 
for the all-round teacher who was vitally 
interested in student problems and student 
affairs was giving way to the enthusiast in re- 
search whose relations to students were often 
confined within the classroom walls. 

The problem was the same in both the co- 
educational institution and the women's col- 
lege, — a changing and enlarging student body 
with less interest in intellectual things, a more 
complex and elaborate social life within the 
college, less intimate relations between faculty 
and students, and more problems of so-called 
discipline. The woman's college met the situ- 
ation in part by self-government associations ; 
the coeducational institutions met it so far as 
their women students were concerned in quite 
another way. Then it was that the ^' dean (or 



THE DEAN OF WOMEN 7 

adviser) of women" came into being — to 
meet a practical need, a social requirement. 
There had always been in the smaller coedu- 
cational colleges, especially the denominational 
ones, a " preceptress " or a " lady principal." 
These institutions had cared for their women 
students ordinarily in a dormitory, where the 
preceptress presided, and where she also looked 
after the manners and morals of her charges. 
She frequently taught such subjects as Bibli- 
cal literature, English literature, or the his- 
tory of art. If young men took their meals in 
the dormitory, and so came in contact with the 
preceptress, she sometimes wielded an influ- 
ence over the masculine part of the commun- 
ity as well. 

But in the state universities dormitories 
were almost unknown, and where there was 
one, the preceptress had no authority outside 
its walls. The Greek-letter organizations, to 
which a limited number of young women be- 
longed, frequently occupied separate houses, 
with a chaperon who was often a figurehead. 
These young women exercised among their 
members a more or less mild form of self-gov- 
ernment by dint of public opinion. The rest 



8 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

of the women students were free to do about 
as they pleased, subject only to such restric- 
tions as the faculty might put on men and 
women alike. The more thoughtful parents 
and members of faculties were aware that 
young women must have more adequate safe- 
guarding in social matters than were necessary 
for young men ; that indiscretion and folly 
meant a far bitterer repentance for one sex 
than for the other ; and that a harmless prank 
in a gossiping community might have a tragic 
ending out of all proportion to its thoughtless 
beginning. Moreover, where there was inade- 
quate provision for living quarters, there was 
a strong feeling that it was necessary to have 
some person in authority who could arrange 
for and supervise in some fashion the lodging- 
and boarding-houses in which young women 
must pass three quarters of every year of col- 
lege life. It was because of this complex situ- 
ation that there came to coeducational institu- 
tions the idea of an official whose duty should 
be, as has been said, " the care and supervi- 
sion of the young women." 

It was very natural that this official should 
occupy a position which differed both from 



THE DEAN OF WOMEN 9 

that held by the preceptress of a dormitory in 
a small coeducational institution and from that 
occupied by the dean of a woman's college. 
The machinery for arranging courses of study, 
granting permission to carry a larger or smaller 
amount of work than was required of the aver- 
age student, framing entrance requirements, 
and in other ways carrying out the educa- 
tional policy of the institution — all this was 
provided for by the of&ces of deans of various 
colleges and by registrars before the new offi- 
cial came into the community. Because of the 
hard-and-fast character of college administra- 
tion it was extremely difficult to loosen any 
joint or fit in any new cog. Hence the new 
appendage to the faculty frequently came in 
under the harmless and inane title of '' ad- 
viser of women " — with her title and her 
position equally anomalous. Among certain 
groups of faculty, students, and even trustees 
themselves, the new adviser of women was re- 
ceived resentfully and even antagonistically, 
for it was felt by many on all sides that when 
students came to college they were no longer 
boys and girls, but were young men and young 
women, quite capable of looking after them- 



10 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

selves. The adviser of women had her own 
way to make and her position to form in the 
midst of difficulties of all sorts. 

Fortunately a few institutions realized that 
in a community where the measure of a pro- 
fessor's power and effectiveness both inside 
and outside the classroom came most largely 
through his intellectual attainments combined 
with his personality, it would be necessary 
for an adviser of women to hold a position on 
the faculty. As a consequence a search was in 
a few cases made for women with college de- 
grees and records for post-graduate work which 
would enable them to be appointed to pro- 
fessorial rank and to give courses on a parity 
with those offered by men. It was in such ap- 
pointments that the title "dean of women" 
was apt to be chosen rather than " adviser of 
women/' and the difference in nomenclature 
was most significant. When the title combined 
the recognition of the dual character of the 
position as dean of women and (let us say) 
assistant professor of classical philosophy, the 
situation became yet clearer. But an obstacle 
was then encountered in the antipathy, open 
or veiled, to the appointment of women on facul- 



THE DEAN OF WOMEN 11 

ties composed almost exclusively of men. Many 
institutions which deny stoutly any theoretical 
objections to women per se on faculties, when 
they go a-seeking new incumbents for positions 
do not make strenuous endeavors to have laid 
before their impartial eyes full lists of avail- 
able candidates drawn from both sexes. The 
consequence is that men seem to be the only 
persons eligible and the ranks of new instruc- 
tors are filled overwhelmingly from the male 
sex. Appointed under such circumstances, the 
new dean and professor had to make good 
against tremendous odds in which personality 
and charm, valuable as such assets are, weighed 
out of all proportion to their real importance. 
No one can overestimate the advantage of 
possessing a magnetic, sympathetic, charming 
personality, when one's lines are laid in a com- 
munity of young men and women who are im- 
pressionable, idealistic, enthusiastic, and given 
over to hero-worship. Nor are faculties immune 
where such a personality is concerned, stoutly 
though they may gird themselves up against 
such a dire influence when it is incarnated 
in a woman. But that one should owe the suc- 
cess of one's of&cial life and the tenure of 



12 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

one 's position to the possession of such a per- 
sonality means putting the emphasis in the 
wrong place. Yet when one is a dean of stu- 
dents and not a dean of a college, when one 's 
work is so largely personal even when it is 
also administrative, personality must weigh 
rather heavily in the scale. 

As time has gone on, it has become in- 
creasingly clear that more is needed as equip- 
ment for " the care and supervision of young 
women " than personal charm combined with a 
love of girls. For desirable as such equipment 
may be, young women — and young men also 
— in a college community look for the sign of 
certain definite intellectual and spiritual attain- 
ments, and for tactful, skillful leadership born 
of large-mindedness and wide experience before 
they give to any man or woman their unquali- 
fied, enthusiastic, loyal support. Very few state 
universities were wise enough to see this situa- 
tion at the beginning, and a number are yet 
unconvinced. One prominent institution be- 
gan with a dean of women who was also an 
assistant professor, after her departure allowed 
the whole position to lapse, later filled it with 
an adviser of women who did not teach, and 



THE DEAN OF WOMEN 13 

now has a dean of women who is also an as- 
sociate professor. In that way only, perhaps, 
can experience be gained as to the best method 
of working out a problem whose solution is at 
best a difficult one. 

One must not forget to note the part which 
the Association of Collegiate Alumnse has 
played in setting unequivocally before a num- 
ber of institutions the necessity under which 
they have lain of appointing deans of women 
who shall be teachers as well as administrators. 
But the conversion of many institutions has 
been slow, and a few are still laboring in a 
light which is dim but not necessarily religious. 

The inception of the office of dean of women 
in state universities may be assumed to have 
lain in a practical need and a vague fumbling 
about to meet it. Out of that earlier situation, 
however, there has now emerged a large neces- 
sity with more precise definitions, and the po- 
sition of dean of women should have grown 
and developed in corresponding degree. This 
large necessity is concerned first and foremost 
with the intellectual life of the women students. 
A quarter of a century has seen an extraordi- 
nary multiplication of college courses and an 



14 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

increasing differentiation in the character o£ 
institutions open to women. It is natural that 
coeducational institutions should proceed more 
slowly in meeting the situation for women than 
they do for men. Courses which are definitely 
planned to meet specific requirements which 
shall fit men for professions of various sorts, 
medicine, law, engineering of all kinds, agri- 
culture, and so forth, are provided in most in- 
stitutions with ease and with alacrity. But 
these courses are primarily for men, and it re- 
quires some hardihood and a good deal of con- 
viction on the part of women to bring their 
enrollment in these courses. On the other 
hand, courses for women in institutional man- 
agement, in secretarial work, in social service, 
the coeducational institution finds it difficult 
to provide. 

The danger is that coeducational institutions 
will continue to be in the future as the vast 
majority have been in the past, — institutions 
for men, with requirements set at a man's pace 
and to meet his needs, where women are ad- 
mitted, rather than institutions which provide 
with equal readiness, ingenuity, and enthusi- 
asm courses for both sexes. To be more ex- 



THE DEAN OF WOMEN 15 

plicit : women's emergence into new and highly 
specialized aspects of economic and professional 
life has been so meteoric that it has been diffi- 
cult to provide courses which would fit them 
for these various vocations, partly because of 
the constantly shifting character of the voca- 
tions themselves and the consequent vagueness 
in the matter of preparation for entering them, 
and partly because men administrators in co- 
educational institutions have attempted almost 
single-handed to work out women's problems. 
Nor has this situation — that of men's organ- 
izing or ratifying courses for women — been 
due wholly to the fact that men are in the pre- 
ponderance on faculties in coeducational insti- 
tutions ; it has been brought about also be- 
cause of the small number of college-bred 
women competent to work out vocational train- 
ing along any other line than that of teaching. 
The impetus to preparation for other occupa- 
tions than that of teaching has frequently come 
from women who were not themselves college- 
bred, but who saw by practical experience the 
immense value of having as a foundation for 
these occupations the background of discipline 
and information which, when it attains its 



16 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

purpose, the college affords. By far the great- 
est number of women who go into occupations 
other than teaching have to-day to prepare 
themselves for these occupations — if definite 
preparation be made at all — in especially 
equipped schools and colleges, whose single- 
minded aim is vocational training. 

Just here is to the writer's mind where the 
position of dean of women has greatest possi- 
bilities — in making her, so far as she may be, 
an expert on women's education in a coeduca- 
tional institution. This would not mean that 
every college to which women are admitted 
should be vocational, nor that vocational work 
should invariably begin in the freshman year. 
It is desirable that colleges like Yassar and 
Bryn Mawr should keep their curriculum 
clear of such courses ; it is equally impera- 
tive that coeducational institutions shall pre- 
serve intact a college of letters and science. But 
even in a course whose main purpose is intellec- 
tual discipline and training one may, from the 
immense opportunities offered, select those 
which will form an adequate foundation upon 
which ojie may rear a vocational superstructure, 
and still get the broad outlook and beginnings 



THE DEAN OF WOMEN 17 

of cultivation for mind and spirit which the non- 
vocational college course must give if it is to 
fulfill in any way its primary function. The 
point is that in state universities more espe- 
cially where all classes and kinds of young 
women should be prepared for life if the tax- 
payer is to be convinced that he is not edu- 
cating the favored few, — and those few he 
may feel "out of their class/' — vocational 
courses must be provided side by side with the 
traditional courses. There has come to be a 
considerable differentiation in our women's col- 
leges: for example, the type represented by 
Vassar College, from which vocational work is 
rigidly debarred ; another like Simmons Col- 
lege, where vocational work may proceed at 
once upon the basis of the high-school course; 
and a third like Margaret Morrison Carnegie 
School, where two years of vocational training 
follow two years of foundation training on a 
broad scale. 

Must not the state university at least pro- 
vide all these types ? Must it not maintain its 
vocational college alongside of its college of 
letters and science for those girls to whom six 
or seven years of preparation beyond the high 



18 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

school are impossible ? Must it not also pro- 
vide a middle ground, where two years of a 
broad foundation may be overlaid by two years 
of vocational training? These are questions 
which a dean of women may well consider 
within the realm of her thinking, and their 
solution within the field of her endeavor ; they 
are questions which coeducational institutions 
must answer, yet cannot do so adequately 
without women's advice and aid. No " glorified 
chaperon " will be able to grasp the situation 
and cope with it ; no woman who merely " loves 
girls " in a vague, emotional fashion will be 
able to convince a faculty of men or a body 
of hard-headed trustees of the necessity under 
which they labor of meeting the present eco- 
nomic, social, intellectual, and spiritual needs 
of women. More than charm and natural social 
gifts are required of a leader in women's edu- 
cation ; the times call for an intellectual, spir- 
itual, and social equipment of the highest order 
on the part of those who are to contribute a 
sane, clear-cut, and large-minded point of view. 
If one were to follow up this function of 
a dean of women to its ideal conclusion, one 
would say that a woman's point of view might 



THE DEAN OF WOMEN 19 

well be taken in a coeducational institution 
where problems of men's education^ moral 
and intellectual, were discussed. One feels a 
profound pity and sympathy for the father 
who, because death or incompetence has de- 
prived him of his helpmate, struggles single- 
handed to rear his family of girls and boys. 
He is indeed fortunate if all his female rela- 
tives do not rush in a body to his rescue from 
an excess of zeal and compassion for him ! 
Why should one expect men to cope alone 
with the complex problem which the educa- 
tion of young men presents to-day in the lax 
atmosphere which too often surrounds them 
both at home and at college ? The men's col- 
lege can take care of itself ; — it has for a 
number of hundred years and will continue 
to do so. But if a coeducational institution 
is to bring to young men the refining and en- 
nobling and cultivating influence which its 
most zealous adherents claim for it, then the 
woman who is brouo^ht in to be a leader for 
the girls can scarcely be delegated to the low- 
est seat in the congregation. It would be 
difficult to determine just how far many a 
young man's ideal of women as well-bred, 



20 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

well-trained, thinking persons has been low- 
ered by the attitude of a faculty which patron- 
izes if it does not ignore the woman who 
has been called in to take over problems of 
discipline which men did not care to con- 
sider. 

There are exceptional institutions which 
make their dean of women assistant chairman 
of their student affairs committee, with the 
possibility of acting as chairman in the ab- 
sence of the regular incumbent. Every insti- 
tution ought so to recognize its dean of wo- 
men, for if she be the right sort of woman 
she ought to have that place. She ought fur- 
ther to have a definite opportunity for giving 
to the community whatever experience and 
advice she may be able to muster in solving 
all problems, whether they concern men or 
women or the relations of each to the other. 
I have said that this is ideal ; so it is. But it 
is also the part of wisdom and of fair play. 
Men and women bring out of an unlike expe- 
rience and quite diverse traditions different 
points of view and different reactions upon 
the same question. Why not have the advan- 
tage of two minds rather than one? And be 



THE DEAN OF WOMEN 21 

it said by the way, that men do not care for 
a man's mind in a woman's frame, although, 
in an excess of complimentary speech, they 
may so designate what they consider an excep- 
tionally clear mental attitude; a "perfectly 
good " woman's mind is something no woman 
need be ashamed to possess nor any man 
reluctant to recognize. 

It is curious that colleges should be slower 
to recoo^nize the value in their councils of 
women's experience of life than are commit- 
tees of business men engaged in rehabilitating 
a city or a slum district. But coeducational 
institutions are prone to intrench themselves 
behind a high wall of conservatism, and, in a 
passionate endeavor to preserve what of cul- 
ture and of high-mindedness they may, fail to 
admit new reinforcements to their garrison, 
although these reinforcements would im- 
mensely strengthen their position. 

It has been stated above that the office of 
dean of women was created partly because of 
a feeling that young women in coeducational 
institutions should be cared for in a fashion 
commensurate with that in vogue in women's 
colleges. Yet the dean in the women's col- 



22 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

lege and the dean of women have such very 
unlike positions and such dissimilar functions 
that it is entirely possible to differentiate the 
places the two occupy in their respective 
communities. 

In the first place, the dean of a women's 
college is very like the dean of any one col- 
lege in a coeducational university. She is ex 
officio chairman of those committees which 
look after entrance requirements, accredited 
schools, students on probation, etc., with this 
work as her prime object. She may or she 
may not have charge of the housing problem, 
employment work, discipline, and similar as- 
pects of the social and moral welfare of the 
students. She rarely teaches. But she has no 
superior officer save the trustees and the pres- 
ident, and she is responsible only to them. 
The only appeal from her decisions is to the 
faculty and to the president. She has but one 
public opinion to meet on the part of the 
student body, and that is women's opinion. 
Her position is quite clearly defined and un- 
questionably important. Her success is meas- 
ured largely by her administrative capacity ; 
her personality and the possession of tact and 



THE DEAN OF WOMEN 23 

sympathy are valuable but not invaluable 
assets for her position. 

On the other hand, the dean of women, as 
we have seen, is but one dean among a group ; 
she is, moreover, a dean of students, and not 
of a college. She has to compromise with and 
conform to the wishes and requirements of a 
whole group of men deans whose work is more 
specialized than hers and is tending toward a 
different object. A fractious student may ap- 
peal from her decision to a dozen other au- 
thorities besides the president and the faculty. 
Since a woman is apt to be more rigid and 
unyielding in disciplinary matters and more 
uncompromising where questions of student 
morals are concerned than are her masculine 
colleagues, her decisions are more apt to be 
appealed from and her authority overruled 
than would be the case with her confrere in a 
women's college. But what complicates the 
situation most of all is that she finds a three- 
fold student public opinion, each part of which 
differs from the other ; for she has to meet 
the opinion of the women students, the opinion 
of the men students, and a third opinion which 
is a composite of both. The final situation she 



24 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

has to meet is probably a modification of the 
last-named, since one significant feature of co- 
education to-day is the apparent reluctance of 
the majority of women students to think or 
to act independently. I am not now speaking 
of individual students, but of the whole mass 
of women students as at present constituted. 
They tend to play men's sports, to attend 
men's games, to rush to men's mass meetings, 
to underestimate the fun in " girl parties " 
where no men are present, and to interest 
themselves in the amusing politics of the men 
rather than to develop any life or opinion 
which is distinctly their own. 

If the result were a really coeducational 
society in a really coeducational community 
— one would feel that the situation might be 
quite right and proper ; it would at least be 
logical. But when it seems to result in less in- 
itiative and less ability to deal with women's 
problems than is developed in the women's 
college, is not the situation somewhat deplor- 
able ? For when all is said and done, the ma- 
jority of young women are going after college 
into their own homes and are for the most 
part to find the bulk of their associations with 



THE DEAN OF WOMEN 25 

women and children. It is the business of a 
dean of women to develop and help the young 
women to develop their own organizations and 
their own social life so far as to achieve this 
end; that by these means an apprenticeship 
may be served for the great business of living. 
She must then undertake to form and lead the 
first of the three forms of public opinion noted 
above — that of the women students them- 
selves — and to guide the third, the composite 
of men's and women's reaction on a situation. 
Student opinion, intolerant, impatient, and im- 
mature though it be, is everywhere wholesome 
and sound if one can get to the core of it. 
But in a women's college it is almost wholly 
formed by the mere presence of the student 
body; it is shaped by the constant contact 
with administrators and teachers which the 
somewhat isolated life characteristic of most 
such institutions fosters and by the daily meet- 
ing shoulder to shoulder in classroom and 
chapel. In the state university especially, and 
still more particularly in the ones which have 
the largest attendance, there are no such ef- 
fective instruments for moulding and directing 
student thought and ideals. It is just at this 



26 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

point that the largest aggregations of students 
are likely to lose ; the working of mob psy- 
chology finds all too fertile a field, and the 
conservation of traditions of good breeding, 
clean fun, intellectual attainments, and high 
morality becomes ever more difficult. The 
problem is stupendous any vray you look at it. 
Its solution calls for all the God-given powers 
of faculty and students alike. 

A dean of women is called upon constantly 
to address groups of women students — the 
different religious organizations, the self-gov- 
ernment board, the association of Greek-letter 
societies, the College Equal Suffrage, the Con- 
sumers' League, and the different classes ; and 
they want and expect her to speak seriously 
but not sentimentally of the concerns of col- 
lege life in its broadest aspects. Few institu- 
tions have in their midst any one man upon 
whom demands of this sort are so great. It 
would manifestly be unfair to leave the finer 
and more delicate aspects of college life to be 
held together and the pace set higher by the 
sheer moral force of one woman working 
single-handed. If we are not careful this is 
where we shall find ourselves, and more than 



THE DEAN OF WOMEN 27 

one dean of women will resign because, as 
has been said, " She cannot remain longer in 
an extra-hazardous occupation " ! 

It is not necessary to dwell upon the danger 
of libel and slander suits which she runs in 
the simple performance of her duty. In com- 
munities like those of the larger coeducational 
institutions it sometimes becomes necessary to 
weed out one student that the rest may lead 
the wholesome life with which they must be 
surrounded. The more of a menace such a 
student is, the more unscrupulous will be the 
means employed to retain a foothold in the 
community. It is nerve-racking and should be 
unnecessary to suffer martyrdom in the per- 
formance of one's simple duty. And the pres- 
ent salary of deans of women will not bear the 
strain of many lawsuits. 

It ought in some way to be made known 
without question or equivocation that any in- 
stitution will regard an attack upon any of its 
officials as an attack upon itself ; that every 
resource will be made available to defend a 
righteous cause ; and that no administrative 
officer will have to bear alone an insidious 
undermining of her influence and her very 



28 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

position itself. Presidents and trustees of state 
institutions will do well to consider at length 
and with care just how the position of a dean 
of women may be made less '' extra-hazard- 
ous." It is almost inconceivable that the dean 
of a women's college should be placed in such 
a difficult position, partly because such insti- 
tutions are privately endowed and so may 
handle problems of discipline with a freer 
hand, and partly because public opinion is 
more uncomplicated, as has been said before. 
It is all a part of the fact that the two kinds 
of deans differ greatly, and that the dean of 
women has even yet a far less well-defined 
and well-standardized position than has her 
sister official in the women's college. 

Yet in spite of all its hazards and its many 
vaguenesses, both theoretical and practical, in 
spite of the fact that its greatest possibilities 
have not yet been generally recognized, the 
position of dean of women is emerging into a 
definite administrative and academic office. 

The underlying principles upon which it 
proceeds are : first, the right of a woman to 
the highest possible individual development, 
intellectual, moral, social, and spiritual, to the 



THE DEAN OF WOMEN 29 

end that she may be the best kind of woman ; 
second, the right of a woman to the highest 
social development in the sense of responsi- 
bility to and realization of the group in which 
she finds herself — the family, the civic com- 
munity, the economic group, and the State. 
The organization of the office should be the 
attempt to realize in a practical way the ideals 
their underlying principles represent. 

Suppose we take as a starting-point in the 
realization of these ideals, as the largest and 
most important function of a dean of women, 
her relation to the educational policy of the 
institution with which she is connected. How 
shall it be made concrete ? First, by her actual 
membership, with a power to vote, upon com- 
mittees which determine that policy. If un- 
happily the custom is for the inception and 
conduct of new plans to lie with the trustees 
or the president or individual deans of the 
various colleges, then she will find a discon- 
tented, disaffected faculty, with no unity 
within the institution, and a lack of strength 
to present to the world without. She would 
be wise to refuse to accept a position where 
such high-handed conditions exist. If, on the 



30 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

other hand, the work of the institution is done 
by committees, whose action is ratified by 
faculty vote, she can go in as a member of 
those committees, taking her chance on an 
equal footing with her colleagues. There, in 
open debate, can she set forth the consensus 
of opinion regarding educational policy along 
all lines, getting as well as giving, and feel- 
ing that however slowly changes are brought 
about, nevertheless she has given her best and 
seen fair play. 

Second, she can identify herself with the 
educational policy of the institution by her 
membership on the committee which considers 
cases of exceptional students — such as those 
taking more or less work than the average 
student, those who are to be dropped for de- 
ficient scholarship, those who are to be read- 
mitted after having been dropped, those who 
are put on probation. She may also interview 
the young women whose cases are to be con- 
sidered, and present the facts and recommen- 
dations in clear, impartial fashion without 
wasting the time or the emotions of her com- 
mittee. 

Third, she can help in formulating the work 



THE DEAN OF WOMEN 31 

of departments like that of physical education, 
where the tendency has been all too great to 
tie it up as a subordinate part of the men's 
department, and to ape their sports and their 
methods. Certainly the physical education of 
women ought to keep constantly in mind the 
supreme function of motherhood and weed 
out all sport or exercise which will interfere 
in the long run with its performance. More- 
over, directors of physical education are spe- 
cialists with the defects of their virtues. They 
are inclined to overemphasize the place their 
work occupies in the college course, to feel 
that the work of the classroom may well stand 
aside before an intercollegiate game with one's 
deadly rival, and to refuse stoutly to consider 
the problem involved where a student plays 
hockey or football so much of the afternoon 
that serious mental labor in the evening is im- 
possible. It is the dean of women to whom 
the indignant mother comes with a tale of 
woe concerning the daughter who prefers to 
saunter the three or four miles between her 
home and her classroom, to doing one hour's 
work three times a week in the gymnasium. 
"And Mary cannot do both," insists the 



32 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

mother in conclusion. The dean of women 
ought to bring in the point of view of the 
whole college and the whole college life, con- 
tributing an outsider's opinion to counterbal- 
ance that of the speciahst. The writer believes 
that in a coeducational institution the two de- 
partments should be separated, since the work 
for the women both in the gymnasium and in 
the field needs development along different 
lines from that of the men. Physicians and 
surgeons are not to-day as a body wholly sym- 
pathetic with women's athletics in college ; 
yet the fault is not entirely with the practi- 
tioner. Women need to pin their minds to 
work upon physical education for women far 
more effectively than they have in the past, and 
a dean of women may well lead the campaign. 
Fourth, the dean of women who is to be of 
the greatest service on the side of the intel- 
lectual life of a college or university, must win 
her spurs in the classroom. She ought to 
have had sufficient graduate work and enough 
teaching experience to enable her to offer a 
course not necessarily to freshmen, nor to grad- 
uate students, but to young men and women 
undergraduates who know what good teaching 



THE DEAN OF WOMEN 33 

is and who respect good teachers. There is no 
more effective place for inculcating respect for 
women's powers and equipment than on the 
teaching side of a desk in a college classroom. 
The effect upon a student body of having a 
woman who holds both professional rank and 
an administrative office may not be obvious, 
but it is none the less real. And whatever may 
be the case so far as the student body is con- 
cerned, certainly such a woman has far more 
power when she seeks the cooperation of a 
faculty. It is the most natural thing in the 
world, when one judges one's colleagues, to 
use as a measure of capacity and effectiveness 
the success with which precisely the same sort 
of work is done. That is, it is very natural that 
a professor of English literature should judge 
the achievements and ability of a dean of 
women far more through her success as a 
teacher than as an administrator. Since no dean 
of women can go far without the support, coop- 
eration, and good-will of her colleagues, it is 
vital to her effectiveness that she should teach. 
But there are other reasons for her teach- 
ing which are to the full as vital as that just 
named. When one has perpetually under con- 



34 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

sideration problems of administration, organ- 
ization, and discipline ; where one is, more- 
over, able to go away from the community 
only at infrequent intervals; where one is in 
constant contact with people who thought- 
lessly or innocently propose to discuss in and 
out of season the situation at which one is 
working; where one hopes to win and keep 
the respect of the student body, — then to 
preserve one's soul alive and to keep one's 
mind upon the distant vision it is absolutely 
essential to have a part in the intellectual life 
of the community. Just why people should 
feel free to criticize the work of a dean of 
women when she is a guest at a dinner party, 
or when she is encountered quite casually at 
a street corner, can probably only be answered 
in another existence. Certain it is that she can 
by such means be too easily depressed beyond 
the point where she can do effective work; 
and one potent remedy for her lies in her 
ability to bury herself in an intellectual pur- 
suit where she may regain her idealism and 
her sense of proportion, and emerge again 
with her realization of the humor of the situ- 
ation unimpaired and her soul refreshed. 



THE DEAN OF WOMEN 35 

The work of a dean of women is suscepti- 
ble of a classification which may be helpful in 
clarifying a discussion of its place and its 
value in the community, as well as in giving 
concrete form to the ideals which are its foun- 
dation and in the last analysis its justification. ^^ 
This classification divides her duties into ad- '. 
ministrative, academic, and social. Sometimes 
these divisions overlap, but on the whole 
they are distinct. Since this organization is 
already in operation in at least one state uni- 
versity, it has the advantage of being a reality 
and not a theoretical scheme. 

Under administrative duties come the par- 
ticipation in the work of trustees' committees, 
concerned with affairs affecting women, such 
as construction of dormitories, appointment of 
mistresses of halls of residence, etc. ; in the 
work of faculty committees dealing with the 
curriculum, discipline, loan funds and scholar- 
ships, hygiene, and special committees with 
students on all kinds of student problems. 
There fall also under administrative duties the 
organization of an annual vocational confer- 
ence for setting forth opportunities of which 
students may avail themselves in occupations 



36 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

other than teaching; the work of vocational 
guidance in so far as such work is advisable ; 
the oversight of rooming-houses, and the task 
of finding employment for young women who 
must wholly or in part work their way. 

Under academic duties come the actual 
teaching work which the dean of women may 
do, and any other task which her colleagues 
as faculty members may perform. For in- 
stance, as a member of the history department 
in an institution where a thesis is required be- 
fore a student can be graduated, she may have 
a group of seniors doing research work under 
her direction. She may also serve on the com- 
mittees in her academic department which ex- 
amine candidates for higher degrees. As a 
by-product she may do a piece of research from 
time to time in her own field in investigation. 
It has a very wholesome efPect upon a dean of 
women and upon her faculty confreres if once 
in a while she finds herself able to slip into 
university post-boxes copies from some profes- 
sional journal of a reprint bearing the inscrip- 
tion, " With the compliments of the author " ! 
Her academic and administrative duties overlap 
in such matters as investigation of reported 



THE DEAN OF WOMEN 37 

absence of students from class, of failure to 
make up back work, and of the cause of failure 
in a given course. Here lies a large amount 
of work requiring tact as well as wide knowl- 
edge of university problems. 

Her social duties are limited only by her 
strength and the hours in a day. She must 
meet freshmen and returning students infor- 
mally at the beginning of the year, both in 
her office and out of it. She must be present 
when possible at student functions — but as 
a guest of honor, not as a chaperon. She must 
keep an " at-home " day once a week through- 
out the year, in a place where students may 
come readily and without embarrassment for 
the simple hospitality which she dispenses. 
She must dine out with students as she may 
be asked ; she must entertain at times for uni- 
versity guests as well as for her own. She must 
try to see parents when they come to visit 
their children, although the cooperation she 
gets from them is usually far less than she has 
a right to expect. In and around her social 
duties, using that phrase in its broadest sense, 
is her constant obligation to meet organized 
groups of students on their invitation, that 



38 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

she may set before them as an older woman 
can the problems which confront them in col- 
lege and out of it. Young women are keen 
for all sorts of discussions in every field of 
human thought; their eager passion for truth 
should be recognized and helped to good uses, 
should be trained to action, and not allowed 
to expend itself in pure emotion. Many girls 
come to college with the idea that " social 
experience " means the ability to walk into an 
afternoon tea party with assurance, and to 
use with invariable correctness the proper 
forks at one's place. That it should mean the 
ability to make any man, woman, or child at 
home in one's presence because of a funda- 
mental sympathy with the ideals of every hu- 
man being who has any, is as startling to the 
average freshman girl as it is new. With the 
social duties of this larger sense which devolve 
upon a dean of women, one might deal almost 
indefinitely. 

Administrative, academic, social — such is 
the threefold aspect of the work of a dean of 
women in a state university. It is evident that 
where this is the development of the office, no 
one woman can possibly compass it all. What 



THE DEAN OF WOMEN 39 

will be undoubtedly required is a group of 
women under the dean's direction, each of 
whom will combine, as does the dean herself, 
the threefold duties of administrative officer, 
teacher, and social leader. It ought to be im- 
possible to call any woman into a college com- 
munity for disciplinary and social duties only. 
She must be admitted to the intellectual life 
as well. The presence of such a group of 
women living for a term of years in a univer- 
sity community ought to bear fruit in its ef- 
fect upon student bodies. If one might fore- 
cast the results of such an arrangement, one 
would certainly lay stress upon the higher 
moral tone, the air of better breeding, the in- 
creased significance of the intellectual work, 
and the heightened respect of men and women 
for each other which could not fail to follow 
in its train. We all deplore ultra-feminism and 
sex antagonism as insidious enemies of wom- 
en's real development. Let us rout them in 
our state universities by sane and high-minded 
methods, by teaching in theory and in prac- 
tice that in the solution of great human prob- 
lems both men and women are needed, work- 
ing side by side in a spirit of unselfishness 
and fair play. 



CHAPTER II 

THE PROBLEM OF LIVING CONDITIONS, AND 
THEIR RELATION TO SOCIAL CONDITIONS 

One of the most obvious as well as the most 
complex problems with which the dean of 
women has to deal is that of finding and 
keeping suitable living conditions for the 
women students under her care. When all 
students lived either in college dormitories or 
in their homes, as was the case in the majority 
of institutions fifty years ago, the matter was 
fairly easy to adjust. But with the extraordi- 
narily rapid increase in the number of young 
people who take college courses, few even of 
those institutions which are most heavily 
endowed find it possible to provide under 
their own roofs sufficient room for their stu- 
dents. The state universities, supported as 
they have always been by public taxation, 
have rarely made any effort to erect halls of 
residence ; but where they have put up such 
a building, it has been for the young women. 
Chadbourne Hall, built in 1871 for the women 



THE PROBLEM OF LIVING CONDITIONS 41 

students who were taking the normal course 
in the University of Wisconsin, is one of the 
oldest halls of residence in a state university. 
Even to-day a number of state universities 
have made no effort to build dormitories for 
either men or women because of the necessity 
under which they lie of increasing classroom, 
library, laboratory, and teaching facihties, and 
of raising salaries in order to compete with 
the more heavily endowed institutions not 
supported by the State. As a consequence, 
there has arisen the problem of the student 
lodging- and boarding-house, and the Greek- 
letter society house. The discussion will be 
clearer if each one of these classes is taken up 
in order. 

1, The college hall of residence 

Every dean of women who has one or more 
halls of residence under her jurisdiction feels 
herself thereby fortified greatly in doing her 
work ; and every administrator who has none 
spends time and energy in trying to convince 
the " powers that are " of the necessity under 
which they labor of constructing such houses. 
The advantages of halls of residence ought to 



42 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

be obvious ; but it may not be amiss to enum- 
erate a few of them. In the first place, they 
set a standard of kind and cost of living in a 
community. The rent of rooms in a hall of 
residence ought to be slightly lower than that 
of the average of the lodging-houses ; but the 
furnishing, light, heat, and care of the rooms 
should be better than that of any, save perhaps 
the extraordinary outside house. The price of 
board should be lower than that charged by the 
average boarding-house keeper, who has her liv- 
ing to make out of her project besides paying 
overhead charges ; but the food ought to be bet- 
ter in quality, in cooking, and in service than in 
the outside house. By this it is not implied that 
the university or college should not make halls 
of residence pay for themselves; — far from 
it. They ought to be made to meet all oper- 
ating expenses, current repairs, and improve- 
ments, and — in the case of dining-rooms — to 
pay a steward's salary. If privately endowed 
colleges can operate their halls of residence in 
this way, there is no reason why the state uni- 
versity cannot ; and there are cases where halls 
of residence constructed for privately endowed 
colleges on borrowed money have netted three 



THE PROBLEM OF LIVING CONDITIONS 43 

and a half to four per cent on the investment. 
The only difficulty is that in the state univer- 
sity room-rents and board cannot be put up 
too high, or students will live in outside houses, 
and so the value of the halls of residence as 
powers for good in the community will be 
nullified. There is probably no direct way of 
compelling students of a state university to 
live in halls of residence ; whatever compulsion 
there is must be of the indirect sort, by dint 
of providing better quarters and better food at 
a slightly lower cost than is asked elsewhere. 

The second advantage of halls of residence is 
in providing one large group of young women 
through whom a social standard may be set. 
This group tends to be the center of college 
life and to wield a strong public opinion which 
may, under proper guidance, influence every 
other group in the community. The largest 
group ought to be the most influential ; and 
where there is a hall, this is the largest group. 

It is usually unwise for the dean of women 
to reside in the hall or to be the mistress of 
it; for a dean of women must be outside all 
groups, on neutral ground, unidentified with 
any particular set of students, if she is to have 



44 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

the most vital influence. Moreover, she cannot 
do the detailed work, living at such close range 
with a group of lively girls, which would be 
exacted of her were she mistress of a hall of 
residence, and at the same time do the larger 
work which has been outlined in the previous 
chapter. It will, therefore, be necessary to have 
a mistress of the hall, who shall have charge 
of everything save the actual housekeeping, 
and, in the writer's opinion, should also do a 
few hours' teaching during the week. The 
mistress of the hall should if possible be a col- 
lege graduate, whose college career lies not 
too far in the past, who has had experience in 
teaching and experience of life, who is strong 
and vigorous, tactful, cultivated, and resource- 
ful. If she does not teach, she can take over 
certain other work which falls within the dean's 
department, — as the vocational guidance, the 
employment work, the cases to be considered 
for loans and scholarships. It is probably 
wiser, too, that she be paid a fixed salary, pay- 
ing back to the institution a certain sum to 
cover room and board, than to be paid, for ex- 
ample, $700 with room, board, and laundry. 
The former plan simply involves a difference 



THE PROBLEM OF LIVING CONDITIONS 45 

in bookkeeping; yet it is distinctly advanta- 
geous to the holder of any position to have 
her work rated in money rather than in money 
and something else besides. One rarely listens 
to the " room and board " phrase^ and comes 
to regard the money actually received as being 
the real salary. 

Besides the mistress of the hall, it is wise to 
have a stewardess, who shall be responsible for 
the housekeeping and for the dining-room. The 
stewardess should have had a course in home 
economics and in institutional management, 
and should know by practical experience how 
her department may be best administered. In 
some institutions this position has been filled 
by an instructor in home economics, and the 
arrangement has been satisfactory. It is cer- 
tainly wise to use the hall of residence as a 
laboratory in which to teach institutional man- 
agement ; if the stewardess be also a teacher 
of that course, her salary can be more easily 
distributed, and thus a double advantage ac- 
crue. There is liable to be a conflict between the 
standard which a dean of women feels should 
be set on what is in the largest sense the social 
side, and the standard which economy demands 



46 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

as the stewardess sees it. For instance, the 
dean of women may feel for various reasons 
that it is desirable to have coffee served in the 
drawing-rooms on Sunday afternoon ; the stew- 
ardess finds that an eight-hour day for her serv- 
ants interferes with any such extra service. 
The mistress of the hall wishes to have a buffet 
supper on a Sunday evening as a prelude to 
an informal discussion of house problems or of 
affairs of daily life ; the stewardess sees too much 
work in the project. Making use of these ad- 
juncts to strengthen the situation within the hall 
is the constant aim in the women's college ; if 
the dean of women can make use of them, her 
influence can be greatly deepened. It is well, 
therefore, where it can possibly be done, to 
have the relation between stewardess and dean 
of women so defined as to have the final de- 
cision in matters concerning student welfare 
in the hands of the latter, who is an adminis- 
trative officer of the institution. 

The third advantage has already been sug- 
gested — the possibility of using halls of resi- 
dence as laboratories for teaching institutional 
management, and need not be further dis- 
cussed. 



THE PROBLEM OF LIVING CONDITIONS 47 

How large shall the ideal hall of residence 
be ? If one were to speak for the privately 
endowed institution, one might answer in two 
ways : twenty-five girls make an ideal social 
unit if one wishes to develop family ideals of 
association among girls and with their house- 
mother ; or one may answer that a hundred 
makes a good social unit in that no girl is 
thereby compelled to enter into close relations 
with her mates, and her room in that case be- 
comes her castle. There is no question over 
this fact — that the hall must accommodate 
seventy-five girls if it is to be the ideal eco- 
nomic unit. In practice, for a state university, 
it is probably necessary to house one hundred 
and twenty-five or one hundred and fifty girls 
in each hall if the expense to the State is not 
to be greater than can be justifiably asked. 
Since necessity dictates that so large a num- 
ber be housed, it is a good plan to have two 
dining-rooms for each hall, with accommoda- 
tions in each for girls who shall come in from 
the outside lodging-houses for their meals. 
For example, in a hall where one hundred and 
fifty girls are housed, there may be two din- 
ing-rooms each accommodating one hundred 



48 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

girls. In this way the outside girls may have 
some of the advantages which the hall of res- 
idence affords, hoth in providing good food 
and in being a social center. 

In constructing a hall of residence, a few 
things should be noted with care. There must 
be one large living-room which will accommo- 
date at one time all the young women in the 
house, in order to cultivate house spirit among 
the residents and to provide that leverage for 
the mistress in charge which must be present 
if the hall is to achieve its greatest purpose. 
Here will be held the semi-monthly house- 
meetings, the Sunday evening reading or 
" sing," the Sunday morning chapel service. 
Here will take place the receptions, teas, and 
dances which go to make up the social life of 
the hall. Here the young women will dance 
after dinner before study hours begin. No 
small room will take the place of the large 
living-room. Unless some alumnus or alumna 
comes to the fore, the state university will 
probably be unable to provide so perfect a 
room with furnishings, pictures, and books 
selected with such exquisite taste as one finds 
in what is probably the most beautiful college 



THE PROBLEM OF LIVING CONDITIONS 49 

living-room in this country — the one in Oli- 
via Josselyn Hall at Vassar College. But even 
the state university may have a living-room in 
such good taste and at such a cost that it may 
serve as a model in its way for the students. 

Besides the living-room, there should be, in 
a large hall, a small reading-room, where it is 
understood there will be absolute quiet. If we 
are to emphasize the intellectual life of the 
university, we must make some provision for 
fostering it. So many students come to-day to 
college with no love of reading, no experience 
of it, or even a positive distaste for it, that if 
by putting the better class of magazines and 
some good books into a quiet room one may 
thereby foster a desire to cultivate the com- 
panionship of authors, certainly there is an 
obligation upon one to do so. The quiet read- 
ing-room is worth trying. 

A small reception-room for callers is desir- 
able, inasmuch as it leaves the living-room 
and reading-room freer for use by the resi- 
dents of the house. One or two guest-rooms 
are a luxury, perhaps, but they make it possi- 
ble for a mother or sister or friend to come 
for a few days and not disturb the student by 



50 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

having no place save her room in which to 
while away the idle hours of a visit. It is well 
from the standpoint of the administration that 
mothers come for a few days' stay ; they often 
see a great light and give much needed co- 
operation in dealing with student problems. 
Moreover, a college guest of distinction is 
often a source of great joy and real pride to a 
group of college girls, especially when she is 
regarded as the guest of the entire house. By 
all means have at least one guest-room. 

The mistress of the hall should have her 
own sitting-room, her bedroom, and her bath- 
room, since only by these adjuncts can she 
have the dignified position and the privacy to 
which she has a right. It is difficult for un- 
trained girls to know the difference between 
an enforced intimacy rendered necessary by 
too close living-quarters and the nice friend- 
liness of good comradeship. The situation 
must be made concrete and clear before they 
grasp it. There was never an adage more true 
than that " familiarity breeds contempt " ; and 
the sort of informality which is born of insuf- 
ficient privacy of life is a most potent source 
from which may come lack of respect. The 



THE PROBLEM OF LIVING CONDITIONS 51 

college girl is all too prone to do away with 
any reserves of mind or person ; the value of a 
certain sort of high-minded reticence and per- 
sonal dignity has in many cases actually to be 
taught. No mistress of a hall can make her 
charges see what she means by keeping their 
own counsel and being chary of too great inti- 
macy with too many people unless she can live 
out her theories. The university must help her 
by giving her suitable and dignified living- 
quarters. 

The size of the dinino^-rooms has been dis- 
cussed, and it would seem at first blush that 
there could be no refinement of livino; where 
a hundred noisy, high-strung young women 
must take their meals together. Round tables 
afford a most helpful solution of a number of 
aspects which the question assumes. In the 
first place, eight girls at a round table make a 
group compact and small enough for general 
conversation at a possible pitch of voice. In 
the second place, better service is possible at 
a round table, and less obtrusive service where 
the girls are obliged to assist one another in 
passing food. It is well to put in a senior girl 
as head of each table, and through these sen- 



52 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

iors get better table manners^ better and more 
quiet conversation. If here and there an in- 
structor whom the students respect and admire 
will come in for her meals and preside at a 
table, even if only at dinner, the dean and the 
mistress are fortunate in having her influence. 
Where there are two dining-rooms in a hall, 
the mistress of the hall may preside in one, 
and the senior who is house president in the 
other, each of them having a few girls for a 
week at a time at her table. If the mistress 
and the house president exchange places each 
week, each one comes to know both dining- 
rooms. Since the dining-rooms are supposed to 
have, besides the residents of the hall, some of 
the students living in lodgings, the mistress 
of the hall comes to know these outside girls 
and make them feel their quasi-membership in 
the group. Many students like to shift tables 
each semester, and this arrangement has obvi- 
ous advantages. The tables should always, how- 
ever, have representatives of all four classes, 
so that the upper-class girls may feel their re- 
sponsibility toward the under-class girls, and 
exercise it. In most halls a certain amount of 
informality must exist at breakfast and lunch- 



THE PROBLEM OF LIVING CONDITIONS 53 

eon ; but it is certainly wise that dinner should 
be as formal a meal as possible. For instance, 
at dinner the girls should not pass into the 
dining-rooms until the mistress, the house 
president, and house guests have passed in ; 
all should stand until the person presiding in 
the dining-room sits down ; and no girl should 
leave a table until the whole group is ready to 
rise. With so httle opportunity for inculcating 
good manners as the hurried life of the pres- 
ent-day college permits, every chance has to be 
seized. The service in the dining-room should 
be as good as it can possibly be for the money 
expended, since many a girl gets here her first 
ideas of what is good service unobtrusively 
performed. In many halls of residence the 
service is performed partly by paid waitresses 
who also assist in the care of the house, and 
partly by girl students who are in part at least 
working their way. But the service should be 
in that case even better if the matter be prop- 
erly handled. 

Coming now to the details of the student 
rooms in a hall of residence, the debated sub- 
ject of double versus single rooms arises. The 
ideal dormitory should probably have both, 



54 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

but more of the latter than of the former. 
Most girls would do well to room alone in 
order to have in case of need a place where 
they may be for a time by themselves in peace 
and quiet, and where they may cultivate a few 
close friendships. The living-room will be the 
place where they learn to be " good mixers/' 
and if they show themselves friendly, their 
own rooms will be a meeting-place for their 
friends. But one of the reasons why young 
women are so restless and discontented after 
they leave college is because they have become 
used to living in droves, never having a quiet 
moment for thinking, or reading, or sewing, 
or " inviting one's soul " ; they have been used 
to having always a half-dozen intimate friends 
careering about in their rooms, doing every- 
thing in threes and fours, and getting hysteri- 
cal without knowing why. Yet there are girls 
who need to live at close range with other peo- 
ple, learning adaptation to another person's 
desires and rights, coming to know how to 
give and to receive sympathy and companion- 
ship, and achieving a '' social sense " which a 
good many girls lack. The state university 
ordinarily cannot provide suites of rooms, 



THE PROBLEM OF LIVING CONDITIONS 55 

consisting of two bedrooms with a common 
sitting-room, because of the expense such con- 
struction entails. Therefore a combination of 
a majority of single rooms with a minority of 
double ones is probably the best and most 
feasible plan. Each room should have single 
beds, whether the room be for one person or 
two, and these beds should be of such design 
as can be made to look in the daytime like a 
couch. The garrets of at least one of the old- 
est women's colleges in the East are filled with 
bedsteads of an ancient design which the stu- 
dents steadfastly refuse to utilize. Each room 
should also have a large closet. 

Bathrooms should have as many washing- 
bowls and tubs as can be provided within the 
given cost. A few shower baths are desirable, 
but the tubs cannot be wholly eliminated in 
favor of showers. 

If a small kitchenette can be provided on 
each floor where the students may do a little 
cooking, the danger of fire will be minimized 
and the joy of the girls greatly enhanced. 
Every freshman has to live through a period 
of fudge-parties and chafing-dish orgies, and 
the college would do well to help make these 



56 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

periods as short and as little deadly as pos- 
sible. 

After the physical equipment has been pro- 
vided, there comes the all-important question 
of house organization. Every dormitory fam- 
ily should be made up of representatives of 
all four college classes, but in state univer- 
sities the freshmen may well constitute nearly 
one half of the entire number. These young 
girls are the least experienced in the college 
group, are just feeling their wings and hav- 
ing their first taste of independence, and if 
they are to be brought into touch with the 
standards which the college maintains within 
and without the classroom, they can be most 
easily and quickly trained in a hall of resi- 
dence. The sophomores should form the next 
largest group, the juniors next, and the seniors 
the smallest, since the upper-class girls are bet- 
ter able to look after themselves and may be 
more depended upon to maintain standards 
when they live in lodgings than are the under- 
class girls. It is well to have seniors and juniors 
selected from former residents of the hall, 
since traditions can thus be in some measure 
conserved. The proportion in Barnard Hall, 



THE PROBLEM OF LIVING CONDITIONS 57 

one of the two halls of residence for women 
which the University of Wisconsin has erected, 
is not ideal, but it will serve as a standard ; 
out of one hundred and thirty-seven residents, 
fifteen are seniors, twenty are juniors, thirty- 
five are sophomores, and sixty-seven are fresh- 
men. Graduate students are excluded from 
residence because they are best able to shift 
for themselves; but they are helpful as heads 
of tables. The whole group chooses its house 
president from the seniors who have been 
resident in the hall; this officer is to repre- 
sent the hall socially, to preside in one of the 
dining-rooms, preside at house meetings, be 
chairman of the executive committee, and of 
the group of proctors who are elected to rep- 
resent each floor. The house president also 
is ex officio a member of the self-government 
association board, and may have other elected 
members serving with her. 

It is through the house organization that 
the mistress of the hall may work very effec- 
tively. Her work will, indeed, be a combina- 
tion of serving on committees with students 
and of helping individual students. She will 
probably have to show her charges the differ- 



68 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

ence between student-government and self- 
government : — that is, between goverment by 
a group of students and the government of 
each student by herself. She must make clear 
the fact that no girl has a right to make a 
disturbance until a proctor, whom freshmen 
are prone to conceive has been elected to pre- 
serve order, comes in '^ to call her down." Self- 
government is the ideal toward which every 
college administrator is striving, and its na- 
ture cannot be made clear too early in a 
student's career. The mistress of the hall 
ought to attend house meetings, but she must 
not direct them nor seem in any way to dom- 
inate them. It is often the most difficult 
thing in the world to let students do poorly 
what an administrator could do well, to per- 
mit mistakes to be made that an older person 
might have prevented; but any thoughtful 
mother will tell you that often actual ex- 
perience of bumping one's head is the only 
way to prove that a wall is hard, and that 
humiliation over one's error is the best 
teacher in the world. Students have a right 
to make their own mistakes; and admin- 
istrators will have to let the mistakes be 



THE PKOBLEM OF LIVING CONDITIONS 59 

made if self-government is to be taught as 
a reality. 

One last question comes up before the dis- 
cussion of halls of residence is laid aside. In 
state universities where a large number of 
students come from outside the State, appli- 
cations from these students may be first in 
point of time and greater in numbers than 
those from students who are children of tax- 
payers who contribute to building those very 
halls. Shall preference be given to students 
resident within the State ? When the matter 
has been discussed on all sides, the writer be- 
lieves that such preference should be given. 
One reason why parents send their children 
to a university outside their State is because 
such halls and the influences they wield are 
present; if every state university provided 
them, no one institution would be selected 
because of the greater care with which the 
young women students are there surrounded. 
It is unfair, when a State has attempted so to 
protect and help its own children, that these 
children should after all have to take the less 
desirable lodgings. If this is likely to be the 
condition which will arise, then it would seem 



60 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

fairer that the children of taxpayers should 
have first choice of rooms in halls of resi- 
dence. If a farther distinction could be made, 
the daughters of people who are graduates of 
the institution, but who live outside the State, 
should be given next place in application, 
since the tie between alumni and alma mater, 
often all too weak in a state institution, may 
thus be strengthened. 

2. Greek-letter society houses 

The Greek-letter societies for young women, 
commonly called interchangeably " fraterni- 
ties" or "sororities," probably found their 
origin in a combination of causes. The desire 
for close association among intimate friends 
by some mystic rites of initiation, the pos- 
session in common of a few secrets such as a 
password and a grip, and a badge which shall 
mean much to the owner and little to the out- 
side world — all these are a part of human na- 
ture, especially in its youth. College boys have 
always been prone to such combinations, and 
it was to be expected, when girls began to go 
to coeducational institutions where their broth- 
ers had such organizations, that they, too. 



THE PROBLEM OF LIVING CONDITIONS 61 

should form their groups bound together by 
rite and symbol. When to this natural love of 
the mystical was joined the practical necessity 
of finding places where members of a society 
might live together, the " fraternity house " 
was an obvious solution of the matter. This 
need of being suitably housed and fed was 
greater in institutions which had no dormi- 
tories or inadequate ones, and it has therefore 
come about that the young women in state 
universities have formed the largest number 
of these combinations. From a tentative be- 
ginning of local association among a small 
group which found congeniality in that way, 
the next step was to " affiliation," so-called, 
with an organization which had " chapters " 
in a number of institutions, and after such 
affiliation to begin building their own house. 
These houses have been built in various ways, 
but most frequently through a joint-stock 
company made up of alumnae and undergradu- 
ates, and through a building and loan associa- 
tion. In many universities there are a number 
of these houses actually owned by the mem- 
bers, while many are still only partially paid 
for, and some societies still rent houses owned 



62 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

by some one outside the organization. The 
members usually plan, when they are buying 
the house, to pay interest and upkeep, and to 
put a sum annually into the sinking-fund out of 
what is paid in in room rents ; while the money 
paid into the treasury for table board goes to 
pay heat, light, food, and service. A special 
assessment is made to pay extraordinary ex- 
penses, such as those incurred for entertain- 
ment. The room rents are usually about the 
same as are charged in a hall of residence ; 
the price of board is usually slightly lower, and 
the food is often less good and less varied than 
in a hall. The assessments vary from one or- 
ganization to another, and from one year to 
another, but are not ordinarily large in the 
aggregate. The young women members of the 
society have an organization much like that 
described for a hall of residence, with a house 
president and proctors, and for each one an 
elected representative who sits on the board 
of the self-government association. An older 
woman is resident in the house, called variously 
chaperon and house-mother. She may or may 
not have charge of the housekeeping, includ- 
ing the table ; in the former case, she is paid 



THE PROBLEM OF LIVING CONDITIONS 63 

a small salary. Where there is a senior mem- 
ber who is taking the home economics course, 
she is often the house-manager. 

These society houses have possibilities which 
they have not up to the present time realized 
in practice. They are cottage dormitories, that 
would, if rightly administered, contain an ideal 
number of residents for living together as a 
family under the advice and direction of a 
house-mother. The household is selected be- 
cause of congeniality of a sort, bound to- 
gether by a common aim and subject to a 
fairly well-formulated public opinion. They 
are — or ought to be — invaluable to a dean 
of women if she can get their cooperation. 
The whole group can be reached in a few 
hours, the upper-class members (if they are 
the right sort) wield over the younger girls 
an enormous influence, and the society ought 
to be a power for good in any community. A 
Greek-letter society ought to set an example 
of simple hospitality to non-fraternity as well 
as to other fraternity girls ; their entertain- 
ments ought to be unostentatious, in good 
taste, with a ring of sincerity about them. 
The tendency is too often, however, to ape a 



64 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

gaudy, loud, ill-bred society, and to feel that 
only by a dinner dance is real entertainment 
afforded a waiting and interested public. These 
societies have a great opportunity to set the 
standard in dress, both in the classroom and 
out of it; but the aim is too often rather 
to call forth the admiration of the young men 
with whom one is associated in the classroom 
than to be dressed quietly and suitably for 
one's work. The young women in a women's 
college usually dress less pretentiously and in 
better taste than do their sisters in a coedu- 
cational institution ; the " Peter Thompson " 
dress and the " campus cape " have come in 
some of the larger women's colleges to be al- 
most a uniform, while the elaborate wardrobes 
are either left at home or are brought out only 
on rare occasions. The budget of a college 
girl need not be unduly large in the item of 
evening and reception dresses ; it will have to 
be large in the matter of everyday clothes be- 
cause of the hard wear which the active life 
and the long hours in one costume entail. But 
a good many girls "skimp" on raincoats and 
heavy boots in order to flourish forth in a 
variety of party dresses. 



THE PROBLEM OF LIVING CONDITIONS 65 

Another way in which the Greek-letter soci- 
eties might help the whole community is in 
raising the standard of living. If they could 
do away with the hand-to-mouth policy by 
which most of them live, and buy in quantity, 
a number of them joining together in the 
purchase of coal, flour, sugar, etc.; if they 
would adopt some system by which uniformly 
good, well-cooked, and well-served food could 
be forthcoming ; if they would set the stand- 
ard for a neighborhood in the matter of gar- 
bage disposal ; and if their systems of book- 
keeping could be above reproach, with bills 
never running over a summer vacation ; — if 
all these things could be done, the place of 
the Greek-letter society in the university com- 
munity would be indeed enviable. If they 
went further, and set a standard in the mat- 
ter of simple entertainment, they would for- 
tify themselves still more in the public judg- 
ment. When to all these good works they add 
uniformly good scholarship, Utopia will be 
here ! It is not asking too much to expect the 
standard of scholarship in these societies to be 
above the average; for the conditions under 
which they live give much in their favor. 



66 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

There is a comparatively small household and 
there may be quiet for many hours of the day. 
The tendency is too often, however, to make 
privacy and quiet impossible and to prevent a 
girl from having consecutive hours free from 
interruption. There, of course, lies the advan- 
tage of the larger dormitory. But in the so- 
rority house there vrill be congenial people all 
about, and there should be as great warmth 
and as much good food as any dormitory could 
provide. 

The societies are for the most part making 
an earnest and sincere effort to raise their 
standards in this matter ; the point is that the 
societies are about the average of the commu- 
nity, whereas they should be at the top. But 
the dean of women can get the aid of mem- 
bers in special cases as she could not do in a 
group less firmly knit together. The societies 
on the whole wish to cooperate with the ad- 
ministration, and so do their national officers. 

The regulation of " rushing," that is, invit- 
ing in and pledging new members to the soci- 
ety, is one of the most trying and difficult 
problems any dean has to meet. This regula- 
tion must be done partly by the girls them- 



THE PROBLEM OF LIVING CONDITIONS 67 

selves ; but owing to the present competitive 
nature of the organizations it has also to be 
done by faculty action . If th ere is a place where 
young women lose their heads and all sense of 
proportion, it is in " rushing"; and the hyste- 
ria is quite as characteristic of the " rushee " 
as of the " rusher." The vulgarity and folly 
of tearing madly about a college town for the 
first week of college in automobiles, of put- 
ting on one's best clothes before breakfast 
that the freshman daughter of some well-to-do 
business man may be duly impressed with the 
prosperity of a society, of spending money day 
after day on drives and dances, is as nauseat- 
ing as it is incredible and worthless. It gives 
a wrong emphasis at the beginning, it sounds 
a false note, and it brings down the wrath 
and unsparing criticism of a whole State. The 
faculty does what it can ; but it is manifestly 
unfair that a fourth or a fifth of the commu- 
nity should take up a half at least of the work 
which an administrative officer or a faculty 
committee is supposed to devote to student 
problems as a whole. What makes the " rush- 
ing " more mad is the fear which amounts to an 
obsession that the society house " will not be 



68 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

filled/' and as a consequence the interest can- 
not be paid and the sinking-fund be enlarged. 
All promises to the faculty are forgotten in 
the desire to get all the new members possi- 
ble, and the matter becomes a source of pub- 
lic comment and severest denunciation. Some 
universities have tried to keep freshmen out 
of these societies altogether ; but where there 
is inadequate room in halls of residence for 
all freshmen, the writer believes a group of 
them are better taken care of and brought 
more quickly into line in a society house than 
in a lodging-house. If all freshmen could be 
cared for in halls of residence, or in society 
houses, or in their own homes, the effect upon 
the whole college community would in three 
or four years be obvious to all. 

One of the greatest powers in a society 
house should be the house-mother. She ought 
to be chosen by the girls, but approved by the 
dean of women before she enters upon her 
duties. She should be a woman of mature 
years, of tact, good judgment, social experi- 
ence in a large sense, and some intellectual 
interest. She can do most effective service if 
she hold her place for a series of years, so 



THE PROBLEM OF LIVING CONDITIONS 69 

that the young women come to know and ad- 
mire her, and to respect her wishes and her 
judgment. She should bear the same relation 
to the members of the society which the mis- 
tress of the hall bears to the residents — di- 
recting, influencing, helping, and in the last 
analysis exerting authority. The society should 
be self-governed ; but it is absurd to expect 
young women who come from all kinds of 
homes to be infallible in their decisions along 
either social, intellectual, or spiritual lines. 
The opportunities of the house-mother are 
unlimited once she has the confidence and 
sincere affection of her household. She is un- 
deniably in a better position to make her way 
when she holds her place partly through the 
dean's formal approval of her selection ; and 
she is reassured as to her fitness for her work 
when she meets the other house-mothers from 
time to time in conference with the dean. 
These conferences dignify the position of 
house-mother as well as strengthen it ; and 
through them student problems may be dis- 
cussed and some solution reached by common 
consent, without the name of a particular stu- 
dent being mentioned. Such meetings must 



70 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

be within the sphere of work of every dean of 
women. 

One of the Greek-letter societies is pressing 
upon the other societies and the universities 
a plan by which graduate students shall act 
as house-mothers, their remuneration coming 
partly from the society and partly in the form 
of a sort of fellowship from the institution. 
The plan has at least two distinct advantages : 
it gives an intellectual standard to the posi- 
tion and so to the society ; and it gives to the 
house-mother a formal connection with the 
institution and a corresponding increase in au- 
thority. The disadvantages are the lack of 
age and real human experience of the usual 
graduate student, and the fact that her major 
interest is almost certain to be in her gradu- 
ate work rather than in her house problems. 
When is added to this the reluctance most 
state universities would feel to encouraging 
Greek-letter societies even in so laudable a 
way, the time does not seem opportune for 
putting the scheme into practice. Yet the 
ideal house-mother is either an instructor or 
an older graduate student who shall raise the 
level of daily life and thought among her 



THE PROBLEM OF LIVING CONDITIONS 71 

charges. Only through such a woman can the 
society come fully to realize its possibilities. 

3. Lodging-Jiouses 

A large group of women students live in 
lodgings which are not in any way connected 
with the university, save through the relation 
of their landladies to the dean of women. 
Where there are no halls of residence, the 
great majority of women students must live 
in lodgings ; even where there are one or two 
halls, nearly one half the students will room 
in these outside houses. There has arisen in 
almost all university communities a class of 
women who make their living and frequently 
support a family by keeping a student room- 
ing-house ; and the situation thus created pre- 
sents a vital and perplexing problem to an 
administrative of&cer. These women are de- 
pendent for their living upon renting all their 
rooms, and renting them at a good price; 
here and there is one who actually exploits 
student needs for her own benefit. In the 
old days where parents moved to a college 
town that their children might be educated, 
and rented a room or two to other students ; 



72 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

or where families added to their income by 
taking a few student lodgers ; or where an in- 
structor and his wife eked out a meager salary 
by housing a few young women, the situation 
was very different from what it is now with 
a group of shrewd, experienced women de- 
pending for their living upon student patron- 
age. The matter is regulated largely by the 
laws of supply and demand ; any room rent 
is charged which " the traffic will bear " ; and 
sometimes as little is given and as much is 
taken as can be managed without friction. 
Arrangements must be made directly between 
landladies and parents, or between landladies 
and students, for the university cannot assume 
the responsibility for such arrangements. But 
the dean of women may require that certain 
standards be met, and refuse to put upon a 
list of " approved houses " to be sent upon 
request to parents those houses which fail to 
meet the stated requirements. Yet the require- 
ments cannot be put too high or the land- 
ladies will refuse to take young women and 
will take young men, whereupon the dean 
may lose some of the best houses. The stand- 
ards which must be maintained are, first, that 



THE PROBLEM OF LIVING CONDITIONS 73 

only young women shall be lodged in any ap- 
proved house ; second, that a suitable parlor 
on the first floor for the reception of callers 
be open at proper hours for the use of stu- 
dents ; third, that bathroom facilities be ade- 
quate and sanitary ; fourth, that lights be 
available at all hours and be of good quality ; 
fifth, that the landlady herself be the right 
sort of person to take girls into her house ; 
sixth, that the location of the house be such 
that girls may go home alone at any hour. If 
these conditions are met, — and through the 
office of the dean of women inspection of each 
" approved house " should be made at least 
once a year to ascertain that fact, — then the 
landlady has a right to demand that students 
shall remain at least one semester. If a stu- 
dent wishes for a good reason to make a 
change to another house, the dean of women 
should require her to find another student to 
take her room, or to pay a month's rent in 
case the room is not taken before the end of 
that period. Landladies are not, on the whole, 
very business-like ; it would simplify matters 
if they could be brought to charge so much 
per semester for rooms, not so much per week, 



74 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

with a definite arrangement as to when rent 
should be paid. In this way the vexed ques- 
tion of whether or not students should pay 
for rooms during the Christmas holidays would 
be met, and solved without friction. Land- 
ladies might well also require a ten dollar de- 
posit when a room is engaged, the sum to 
apply on the rent when it is occupied and for- 
feited if it is given up. Some students go into 
lodgings because it is possible there to pay 
each month and is not necessary to pay in a 
lump sum at the beginning of each semester, 
as is usual in halls of residence ; some land- 
ladies will allow rent to accumulate for a pe- 
riod of months — an unbusiness-like proceed- 
ing which teaches to students bad business 
methods. But the dean of women can in these 
details only advise and must not dictate. 

If other requirements might be made of 
landladies, the most important would be the 
following : that every room be provided with 
single beds or couches, no double beds or 
couches being permitted ; that there should be 
a standard of window space to the size of the 
room as well as a standard of window space 
and size of the room for one student, for two 



THE PROBLEM OF LIVING CONDITIONS 75 

students, for three students ; and that ample 
parlor space proportioned to the number of 
students in the house be provided. If there 
could be attached to the office of the dean of 
women a woman who should teach in the home 
economics department courses in house archi- 
tecture and house sanitation, and who should 
have the inspection and oversight of the lodg- 
ing-houses, the arrangement would be admir- 
able. If such an officer had some knowledo^e 
of laws governing relations between landlords 
and tenants, the dean of women would be 
spared some anxious hours, and a few students 
some unnecessary tears. 

When the young women are settled in their 
lodgings, the organization of the house should 
be immediately affected. Instructed by the 
dean of women, a senior in the house should 
call all the residents together, explain to 
them the importance and functions of the uni- 
versity women's self-government association, 
have them select a house president who shall 
be ex officio a member of the board of the asso- 
ciation, choose proctors, and adopt the model 
set of rules sent out by the board with such 
additions as they may choose to make for them- 



76 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

selves. The house president may then explain 
the rules for the social life which the faculty 
have laid down, those which the self-gov- 
ernment association has in past years laid 
down, and the traditions which exist in the 
community. She then becomes responsible for 
her house and its conduct, and has an oppor- 
tunity for service to her fellows of which she 
ought to be cognizant and which she should 
take seriously. It is through the house presi- 
dent that the dean of women may become help- 
ful to the house as a whole and to its individual 
residents ; and the cooperation between the 
two should be cordial and thoroughgoing. 

Where there is a woman's building erected 
by the university, its reception-rooms and par- 
lors will be found a helpful adjunct to the 
lodging-house ; for here on Sunday evenings 
and perhaps on one mid-week evening men 
callers may be received, and here the girls who 
live in small houses may entertain at tea or at 
dances. Many young women who come from 
rural homes or from small towns have to learn 
the possibilities of a clubhouse ; but they come 
shortly to prize its privileges. 

If, as has been said, a number of the young 



THE PROBLEM OF LIVING CONDITIONS 77 

women who live in lodgings can take their 
meals in the dining-rooms which the halls of 
residence provide, they can be brought more 
readily and thoroughly into a realization of 
their place in the larger social group. But they 
often board in outside houses, sometimes the 
one in which they room, sometimes in some 
other house. If the dean of women is on good 
terms with the boarding-house keepers, she can 
go for dinner to each house perhaps once a 
year, and so keep in touch with the situation. 
Better still, she may go on a student's invita- 
tion, and thus come into touch with another 
side of student life. 

No matter how many halls of residence an 
institution may provide, there will be always 
need for a few outside rooms which may be 
occupied by students who are too delicate, too 
nervous, or too high-strung to live with a large 
number of people. There will always be, too, 
a group of more mature women who have 
passed the time of life when dormitory life 
has any charms, and who wish quiet and pri- 
vacy more than they want " college life." The 
lodging-house will always, therefore, be neces- 
sary; but it will not dominate the situation. 



78 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

Jj.. The cooperative dormitory 

There are always amoDg the young women 
students of a university a group made up of 
those who must wholly or in part work their 
way. While the whole problem of student em- 
ployment will be discussed in a later chapter, 
one aspect of the self-help problem finds its 
place here. Every dean of women who has 
studied her problem yearns for a cooperative 
dormitory — a house for from fifty to seventy- 
five students, where each may materially reduce 
her yearly expenses by working for an hour 
to an hour and a half a day. Those who 
have seen girls giving twenty to thirty hours 
a week in hard work — scrubbing, washing, 
cooking, sweeping — to pay for room and 
board ; those who have seen girls break down 
under the attempt to do this work and carry 
a full college program ; those who have seen 
girls with good minds give up the struggle 
and settle down to district-school teaching ; — 
all such observers will sympathize ardently 
with the scheme of a cooperative dormitory. 
Wellesley College has had for a long time two 
successful ones ; but Northwestern University 



THE PROBLEM OF LIVING CONDITIONS 79 

at Evanston, Illinois, is the one of the few co- 
educational institutions which operates them. 
Those at Northwestern University, under the 
supervision of Miss Mary Ross Potter, Dean 
of Women, are exceptionally successful. From 
Dean Potter's experience it is the writer's 
opinion that the prime requisite of their success 
is that the building be a gift, so that the item 
of rent may be eliminated. If a large sum must 
go out each month to pay for the use of a house of 
sufficient size, any large success for the scheme 
is precluded. If the State would erect such a 
building, not as a charity device, but just as 
any other hall of residence is erected, the plan 
would be at once feasible. The second require- 
ment is of an able and skillful house-mother, 
who shall apportion the work among the stu- 
dents, do the buying, preside in the dining- 
room and at social functions, and in all pos- 
sible ways help and influence the students. It 
is desirable that such a house-mother be trained 
along technical lines and have also experience 
of institutional management. With a cook who 
shall do the roasting of meats, and the baking, 
and exercise a general oversight of the prep- 
aration of all meals ; and with a furnace-man 



80 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

who shall also do the outdoor work, the work- 
ing force will be complete. The girls do the 
housework, make the warm breads, the salads, 
the deserts, prepare bread and cake for the 
oven, prepare the vegetables, and wait on the 
table. With a household of sixty to seventy- 
five girls, no one girl need spend more than 
an hour and a half a day as a maximum in 
order to cut her expenses in two. The cooper- 
ative dormitory is becoming more and more a 
necessity if we would provide the opportunity 
for higher education for a large class of young 
women who are eager and earnest, serious- 
minded and able, but who by dint of circum- 
stances have not the thing which should count 
least in getting an education — ■ money. State 
universities especially need such an arrange- 
ment, if they are to fulfill their ideal of afford- 
ing an opportunity for a college education to 
every young man and young woman within 
their boundaries who has the desire and the 
ability to get it. 

5. Girls living at home 

With the girl who lives at home the dean of 
women has ordinarily little to do — often less 



THE PROBLEM OF LIVING CONDITIONS 81 

than both desire. Living under her parents' 
roof, subject to their decisions as to the rou- 
tine of her daily life, it is difficult for the 
" town girl " to derive much from her associ- 
ation with the university save in the classroom. 
She is thrown among associates she has known 
all her life, most of whom are not affiliated with 
the university ; her interests are often more 
varied than those of non-resident undergradu- 
ates, and unless she is a member of a Greek- 
letter society, she may be quite outside the 
range of college activities and influences. It 
is the sincere attempt of every organization, 
but especially of the self-government associa- 
tion, to arouse the interest and secure the help 
of the '' town girls," even though such efforts 
are not crowned with any large measure of 
success. In all probability the best method 
of drawing this group into the college life is 
through a freshman girls' organization and 
through women's athletics ; when interest in 
these ways has been secured and acquaintances 
or friendships made, then other ties come more 
easily. On paper most associations which in- 
clude all women students provide for repre- 
sentation for these " town girls " on their 



82 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

board ; but in practice the scheme is not usually 
successful. The dean of women comes in con- 
tact with this group by reason of the oversight 
she exercises with regard to their academic 
work ; and she usually knows the parents of 
" town girls " better than she does the fathers 
and mothers of girls who come from far away. 
But their ideals and hers many times do not 
tend in the same direction, so that her influ- 
ence probably counts for little. 

6. Girls worhing for room and hoard 

Here is a group of students in whom the 
dean of women must take a vital interest. In 
response to letters from prospective freshmen 
asking for aid in working their way through 
college, she will probably urge them not to 
come without money enough to carry them 
through at least the first semester of adjust- 
ment without the necessity of outside work ; 
she will point out that they ought to take at 
least five years for graduation ; and she will in- 
sist upon knowing the condition of their health. 
She will besides interview the woman in whose 
house the student is to work, and endeavor 
to impress upon the employer the standard 



THE PROBLEM OF LIVING CONDITIONS 83 

which may rightly he required, and what would 
be an unjust exaction. But the student must 
be followed up and watched carefully by both 
the dean and the medical adviser; for pro- 
grams are made out on the assumption that 
every student has all her time to give to her 
classroom work, and laboratory hours as well 
as outside reading are assigned with little ref- 
erence to the demands made upon the girl who 
is working her way. The tendency, too, is 
for the girl who works to be quite out of all 
the agencies which make for community life, 
and so lose much of what would be invaluable 
for her. The dean must see that the girl who 
works has also the opportunity for congenial 
play ; and must assign with especial care some 
junior or senior girl who will take pride and 
interest in this sort of social service. 

7. The relation hetween the women^s building and 
the living problem 

A few state universities are fortunate enough 
to have as their social center a "women's build- 
ing," a clubhouse to which all women may 
come freely and in which should be concen- 
trated all the women's activities. It is wise to 



84 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

have the gymnasium, swimming-pool, bowl- 
ing-alley, shower-baths, and lockers in this 
building also, since many aspects of women's 
community life grow up around their play 
hours. Near by should lie the basket-ball, 
hand-ball, and tennis courts, the hockey field, 
and where possible the boat-house. Many girls 
who come from small towns or from rural com- 
munities bring with them the limited idea of 
the uses to which school buildings are ordina- 
rily put in those places, and have to be educated 
to the notion that a clubhouse is often but a 
college building turned on another angle. 
When they begin to teach, they may see the 
possibilities of the schoolhouse as a civic cen- 
ter from their college experience with a wo- 
man's building. 

Beside the gymnasium and its adjuncts a 
woman's building should have a large, digni- 
fied, and beautiful parlor where receptions and 
teas may be held, dances given, banquets ar- 
ranged, and callers received. There should be 
also a reception-room for smaller functions 
like informal teas given by the girls living in 
lodgings, for small luncheons, dinners, and 
for committee meetings. There should be also 



THE PROBLEM OF LIVING CONDITIONS 85 

a room where current magazines are accessible, 
and where studying may be done. Committee- 
rooms are of great value, even where only one 
or two can be provided ; these may be used 
also for small teas if the necessity arises. In 
a model woman's building there will always 
be a cafeteria where town girls may get lunch- 
eon or dinner, and where girls who get their 
own breakfast and dinner may at a minimum 
of expense have one hearty, warm, well-cooked 
meal each day. Here, too, if the situation war- 
rants it, might be an extra dining-room for 
girls in lodgings, accommodating those who 
are not provided for in the halls of residence 
or in the outside boarding-houses. The cafe- 
teria, the dining-room, and the service for extra 
functions such as teas, receptions, dinners, etc., 
should be cared for by the stewardess who has 
charge of the housekeeping and dining-rooms 
of which we have already spoken. The dean's 
office may also be in this building, although 
where there is a central building for executive 
offices, some administrative officers prefer to 
have their records and their rooms in such a 
building. The assignment and arrangements 
of rooms in the woman's building must be in 



86 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

the dean's office, so that it is probably more 
convenient to have her rooms and that part of 
her work in the same place. 

The possibilities of a woman's building are 
almost unlimited. We have already spoken of 
its use as the center for the women's sports, 
for their receptions, dances, committee meet- 
ings, club meetings, and as a place to receive 
callers by the lodging-house girls. We have 
referred also to its availability in the matter 
of providing an extra dining-room and a cafe- 
teria. Within its walls girls may meet on Sun- 
day afternoons for a vesper service, or for 
music, and on Sunday evenings for a reading 
or a " sing." 

Here, as well as in the halls of residence, 
there should be a place where girls may do 
their own laundry, pressing, and possibly also 
shampooing. If there are electric hair-dryers 
provided in connection with the swimming- 
pool, the " hair-laundry ing " is easily arranged. 
In a state university it is especially necessary 
to cut down expenses to the lowest possible 
figure ; and since laundry bills are in the ag- 
gregate a large item where girls dress neatly 
and with care, provision for self-help is in this 



THE PROBLEM OF LIVING CONDITIONS 87 

particular most wise. The cooperative dormi- 
tory will always be fitted out with a laundry 
where students may work. 

If an assistant in the office of the dean of 
women has as her especial work the develop- 
ment of the uses of the woman's building, she 
has before her a valuable and interesting task. 

8, The infirmary 

The problem of living has been viewed in 
this chapter from every angle except that of 
the young woman who is ill ; for her, especial 
provision must be made and especial care 
taken. Setting aside one or two rooms in a 
hall of residence is only a makeshift ; for it is 
impossible to secure in any such place the 
quiet, privacy, and detachment which even 
nervous fatigue requires. If it is impossible to 
have a separate building such as are provided 
in the Eastern women's colleges, the best ar- 
rangement is through a ward and private rooms 
in the local hospital. Here students can be 
cared for under a hospital regime, visiting 
hours can be arranged and enforced, and the 
expense entailed be cut to the lowest figure. 
If no such arrangement has been made, it 



88 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

should be one of the first calls to which a dean 
of women listens when she puts on her man- 
tle of office. If a list can be furnished her by 
the hospital authorities of all the girls in its 
care day by day, she can often be of great serv- 
ice in seeing that the different organizations, 
through a note or a few flowers, show the 
spirit of helpfulness and friendliness for which 
they in the last analysis exist. 

If the dean of women is to do thoroughly 
this fundamental part of her work, — that of 
finding and keeping suitable living-quarters 
for the women students, — it is essential that 
enrollment in her office during the opening 
days of each college semester be a part of the 
registration of every girl. One of the easiest 
methods by which this requirement may be 
met is to have every young woman enroll in 
the dean's office after she shall have regis- 
tered in the registrar's office, but before she 
can pay her fees. When her enrollment in the 
dean's office on a card like the one on page 89 
has been completed, her registration card can 
be stamped with the words, "Enrolled in the 
Office of the Dean of Women,'* with the 
date; she can present her card so stamped to 



THE PROBLEM OF LIVING CONDITIONS 89 

the bursar and pay her fees. The machinery 
has then been set going by which she can 
be drawn into organizations, trained in what 
the university expects of her, and helped in 
every possible way. Moreover, the work of the 
dean of women will be greatly simplified and 
strengthened where the university recognizes 
enrollment of the young women in her ofl&ce 
as an essential part of becoming a member of 
its student body. 



THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

OFFICE OF THE DEAN OF WOMEN 



NAME YEAR 

HOME ADDRESS 

MADISON ADDRESS 

TELEPHONE NUMBER 

NAME OF LANDLADY 

KINDLY INDICATE IF YOU ARE LIVING WITH RELATIVES OR FRIENDS 



CHAPTER III 

PROBLEM OP STUDENT EMPLOYMENT 

One of the most hopeful signs which the per- 
son perceives who believes in the well-nigh 
unlimited opportunities open to our young 
people is the presence in every college and 
university community of the student who must 
work his or her way. Whereas in European 
countries it is unusual to see persons wholly 
without means even aspiring to a university 
education, in the United States it is so usual 
as to excite scarcely any comment. The fig- 
ures published by Columbia, Yale, Harvard, 
and Princeton universities show a large per- 
centage of students in those institutions earn- 
ing annually sums which in the aggregate 
mount up into the tens of thousands of dol- 
lars. It goes without saying that men may and 
do work their way through college more eas- 
ily than women can ; but in 1913-14, of the 
twelve hundred women students attending the 
University of Wisconsin, seventy-five, or 6.2 
per cent, were working their way wholly or in 



PROBLEM OF STUDENT EMPLOYMENT 91 

part. In a state university this group is natu- 
rally larger than in privately endowed institu- 
tions, partly because the annual expense is 
lessened by the item of tuition in the former 
case, and partly because of the large number 
of scholarships usually available in the latter. 
State universities have as yet few scholarships; 
they may or may not acquire them. But the 
institution is near home, a small registration 
and laboratory fee is almost the only initial 
expense, and as a consequence, the door of op- 
portunity seems to a good many girls of small 
means to stand wide open. A dean of women 
is called upon again and again to help girls 
find work, sometimes because self-help is the 
only way to obtain the coveted diploma, and 
sometimes because an over-thrifty father will 
supply funds only as a loan at a high rate of 
interest. As has been said in the preceding 
chapter, the dean of women will advise bring- 
ing money enough to render self-help unnec- 
essary in the first semester, until the newcomer 
has had an opportunity to fit on her working 
harness and make the requisite adjustment to 
the new kind of classroom work. The dean 
will also advise five years' work for gradua- 



92 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

tion, and will make earnest inquiries as to the 
health and strength of the newcomer. But a 
number of girls come to the university first 
and seek work afterwards, with a pathetic 
optimism as to their future. 

The kinds of work for which there is most 
demand on the part of employers are as follows : 
For girls who will work for room and board; 
girls who will care for children in the after- 
noon or in the evening ; those who can do skill- 
fully stenography and typing (and especially 
those who can run a stenotype) ; those who are 
prepared to do filing and other office work; 
library assistants, tutors, and agents for firms 
dealing in hats, ready-made suits and dresses, 
etc. The demand is probably in the order 
named. Students usually prefer to do clerical 
work or tutoring — for both of which kinds 
of work there is but a small demand ; they do 
not like to care for children because the hours 
conflict with laboratory periods or with library 
work on outside reading. They are willing to 
wait on table because they in this way get 
their own meals in return for a minimum ex- 
penditure of time, since their work comes at 
hours which would in any other case be free. 



PROBLEM OF STUDENT EMPLOYMENT 93 

But the attitude of students is^ more often 
than it should be, a false one; they feel that 
they are doing a favor to undertake the work, 
whereas the employer feels that there is a cer- 
tain amount of sacrifice involved on his or her 
part in adjusting work and hours to the par- 
ticular requirements which must be involved 
in employing students. Girls are apt to begin 
with enthusiasm, grow indifferent, and finally 
without warning drop the work either to go 
home or to borrow money which will render 
work unnecessary. The first requisite of a stu- 
dent employee is health, the second is some 
knowledge of the work she undertakes, the third 
the quality of perseverance, and the fourth, 
the acute perception and realization of a busi- 
ness obligation. Unless a young woman pos- 
sesses all these, she will not be a success at the 
difficult task involved in working her way 
through college. 

I have not spoken of student assistantships 
and scholarships because these are usually avail- 
able only for graduate students or those upper- 
class students who have already made an ex- 
ceptional record. 

One of the things which most clamors to be 



94 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

done in universities is the standardization of 
student employment. Standards will vary from 
community to community. The Middle West 
is here taken as an illustration because the 
situation is well known to the writer. In Wis- 
consin student help should command to-day 
about twenty-five cents an hour if it be skilled. 
That is, if board is four dollars and a half per 
week, about eighteen hours of service will pay 
for it ; but since four dollars and a half covers 
cost of service, and the eighteen hours of serv- 
ice is often included in the item, this amount 
of time should probably be somewhat decreased. 
Where students are waiting on table to pay 
for their board, they are not usually called 
upon to give an hour of time at either break- 
fast or luncheon, and not over an hour at din- 
ner. They do not, therefore, give usually eight- 
een hours in a week. If rooms rent for three 
dollars per week, where two girls occupy one 
room, six hours per week at twenty-five cents 
an hour ought to pay each girl's share. Where 
a girl is working for both room and board, 
she ought not, in the writer's opinion, to give 
over twenty-one hours per week for both. This 
would mean three hours only per day, and if 



PROBLEM OF STUDENT EMPLOYMENT 95 

she should give all day Saturday, it might 
mean but two or two and a half hours each of 
the other six days. Any student ought to be 
able to do this amount of work ; but unhappily 
there are women who expect a student work- 
ing without wages to do what a servant work- 
ing for room and board plus a stated sum per 
week in money would have assigned as her 
task. The dean of women has here to step in, 
and educate mistress as well as student. 

Take an illustration again from the Middle 
West. 

Twenty-five cents an hour is probably too 
much to require for care of children, unless 
these small chaps be especially fractious ! Two 
and a half dollars a week for two hours each of 
six afternoons is a fair return. In the evening, 
when studying may be done in connection with 
the work, a student might take even less. But 
twenty to twenty-five cents an hour is, from 
an impartial point of view, a reasonable sum 
to ask. Stenography and typewriting are usu- 
ally paid for by the completed page, deter- 
mined by the kind and amount of work in- 
volved. Of&ce work, if it be of high grade 
with bookkeeping also, commands twenty-five 



96 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

and thirty cents an hour. The work of library 
or student assistant is usually paid for at the 
rate of thirty cents an hour. If, therefore, a 
student has abundant health, she may earn 
both room and board, in which case she will 
need only enough money for her fees, her 
laundry, and incidental expenses; if she waits 
on table for her board, she must either pay 
for her room or do other work to meet that 
expense. In any case, she needs a margin which 
shall be laid by for incidental expenses or a 
rainy day, and not come empty-handed to earn 
every cent she must expend. The nervous wear 
and tear of not seeing one dollar ahead is too 
great to carry with the burden of college 
work, and the friction finally tells. 

The cooperative dormitory will render much 
lighter the problem of the self-supporting girl. 
She will need money here — say $150 per year 
besides her university fees and incidental ex- 
penses ; but she will have all her time at her own 
command, save an hour to an hour and a half 
a day, and she will be living under favorable 
conditions as to actual physical comfort, as to 
nourishment by good food, and as to happy 
surroundings with congenial companions. She 



PROBLEM OF STUDENT EMPLOYMENT 97 

■will learn adaptability, "team-work/' conser- 
vation of energy, the dignity o£ household la- 
bor, and actually to do in the best ways many 
kinds of cooking and household tasks. She 
will find that working her way through college 
debars her from no privileges, deprives her of 
no opportunities which are worth while, and 
tells not at all against her in the final judg- 
ment of her mates. All this is bound to 
broaden her view, increase her self-respect, 
and enlarge her sympathies for all time. 
These ends can, to be sure, be achieved with- 
out the cooperative dormitory ; but that plan 
renders the attainment of such ideals more 
easy and more certain. 

There ought always to be in the hands of 
the dean of women certain moneys available 
for loan funds. Every administrative officer 
has had this experience : A girl has made a 
good fight for three and a half years to work 
her way and to keep up her classroom work, 
finally coming up to her last semester with the 
extra expenses connected with class festivities 
and memorials looming large before her and 
no money to spend upon nor leisure to enjoy, 
the good times she yearns to share. Fifty dol- 



98 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

lars would make possible leisure and a free 
mind. She sees herself a wage-earner the next 
year, and she will willingly borrow the money 
from the loan fund, giving her note for a year 
without interest. Another experience is with 
the senior who has drawn too heavily upon her 
physical resources because of her attempts at 
self-support, whose work begins to show the 
effect of the strain, and yet whose future 
position depends upon her doing work of a 
quality which will insure her a good recom- 
mendation. Here again the loan fund may 
legitimately be called upon. Other cases might 
be enumerated of slightly different sorts; but 
it is clear that loan funds are necessary, and 
that their disposal is a matter for careful in- 
vestigation and sober judgment. They ought 
probably to be most available for students 
nearing the end of their college course — sen- 
iors or second semester juniors. They should 
be drawn upon for students of promise on the 
intellectual side. For the loan fund as well as 
for the scholarship, the classroom work must 
be the ultimate basis of award. We cannot 
afford to lure on by loans and gifts the medi- 
ocre students; the ones who are to have aid must 



PROBLEM OF STUDENT EMPLOYMENT 99 

earn it and must show that after college they 
will be valuable assets to any community in 
which they may live. There was never a truer 
adage than that " what we work for we truly 
appreciate " ; and loans and scholarships must 
not be too easy of attainment, if we are to stif- 
fen backbones and strengthen moral fiber. Soft- 
hearted, well-meaning, unintelligent charity is 
worse in a university than it is anywhere else. 
The student who is most worth while will not 
accept it, and those who would take it ought 
not to have it. If the only return a student 
can make is to pass on the vision and the 
opportunity to some one else, she must be 
held responsible for so doing. 

The routine of placement of students de- 
serves brief notice here. In the University of 
Wisconsin two sorts of cards have been found 
useful, one for the employer, and one for the 
employee, the latter being useful also in the 
work of vocational guidance. 

The forms of these two cards are repro- 
duced, on a smaller scale, on the next page. 



100 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 





THE 


UNIVERSITY 


OF WISCONSIN 






OFFICE OF 

STUDENT'S 


THE DEAN OF WOMEN 


ERfflPLOYMENT CARD 


NAME 










DATE 


YEAR 










COURSE 


ADDRESS 








TELEPHONE 


FREE 


TIME 










KIND 


OF WORK OFFERED 




- 


SENT 


TO 











THE 


UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 




OFFICE OF THE DEAN 


OF WOMEN 
CARD 


EMPLOYER'S 


NAME 


DATE 




ADDRESS 


TELEPHONE 


KIND OF WORK 


WANTED 




COMPENSATION 






TAKEN BY 







Upon these cards every one who wishes 
student help is asked to register, and it is re- 
quested that any complaints be made to the 
office. Students wishing employment are also 
registered, and are asked to talk over any 



- PROBLEM OF STUDENT EMPLOYMENT 101 

difficulties with the dean's assistant who has 
the employment work in charge. Thus the 
office endeavors to keep in touch with the 
problem from all angles. 

I£ it were possible to find work which 
should be well paid^ which should not be too ex- 
acting in its demands upon time and strength^ 
which could be carried on amid healthful sur- 
roundings, and which could be done in the 
long summer vacation, it would immensely 
simplify the problem of the self-supporting 
girl. Work which fulfills these conditions is 
easier to find in the East than in the West, 
because of the better organized arrangements 
in the longer settled part of the country for 
meeting vacation needs and plans. There are 
a larger number of girls' camps, of summer 
hotels and boarding-houses, there is more de- 
mand for summer tutoring and for " mothers' 
helpers " in New England and in the Adiron- 
dacks than has arisen in the Middle West. 
The girls' camp movement, for instance, has 
scarcely begun in the woods of Wisconsin, 
Michigan, and Minnesota, whereas the Maine 
lakes and the New Hampshire mountains con- 
tain many such colonies. In these girls' camps 



102 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

there are always groups of older girls, either 
seniors in, or graduates of, colleges, who are 
called " counselors " and who have charge of 
at least one side of the daily life. For instance, 
one young woman has charge of the swim- 
ming hour, another of the horseback riding, 
another of the reading hour, another of those 
girls who are to be tutored ; and in this way 
the younger girls come under the influence of 
high-minded, responsible young women for a 
number of weeks at a time. These " counsel- 
ors" have their expenses and sometimes a 
small stipend in addition ; even if there is no 
money payment, the summer becomes a play- 
time and a work-time without laying any ad- 
ditional burden of money or debt upon the 
young women who have to make every penny 
count. The problem of the long vacation with 
constant outlay and no incoming resources 
presents itself to teachers and college students 
alike ; and the girls' camp affords a solution 
which has many advantages. Moreover, for 
the college student, the experience of living 
with, and taking responsibility for, a group of 
younger girls is excellent in any case, but 
especially if one is planning to teach or to go 



PROBLEM OF STUDENT EMPLOYMENT 103 

into social service. Take it all in all, the sum- 
mer vacations during the four years of college 
life ought to be made to bear some sort of 
fruit in experience which will be useful in one's 
work after graduation, as well as to develop 
one's resources and enlarge one's point of view 
at the time; moreover, the experience is al- 
most as valuable for the student who is not 
earning her way as for the student who is lay- 
ing by every penny. 

The girls' camp movement is beginning to 
come into the West. If those who are open- 
ing camps would ask deans of women to rec- 
ommend young women who could act as 
counselors, or who could help with the work 
of waiting on table, another avenue would be 
opened which would help solve the problem 
of student employment. There used to be 
summer hotels which employed women stu- 
dents as waitresses; but the demand is now 
for young men rather than for young women. 
College students ought also to be good gov- 
ernesses and mothers' helpers, especially in 
families where a number of servants are em- 
ployed. But deans of women are very rarely 
asked to recommend young women for such 



104 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

positions. Any administrative officer could 
name among her group of students young 
women who could and would do such work 
well ; and again the summer vacation problem 
would be simplified. 

A few students find work in the summer as 
bookkeepers, stenographers, and office help- 
ers; but such employment is usually the re- 
sult of experience gained before coming to 
college, and is given in order that the regu- 
lar force employed during the year may take 
a few weeks' vacation. Substitute work is 
rarely so well paid as is regular work, and the 
long hours in an office tell upon a girl who 
has been working well up to the limit of her 
strength during the college year. The few 
calls that come for girls to take the agency of 
some patented article, or to get subscriptions 
to magazines or papers, need to be considered 
with great care; sometimes the traveling in- 
volved carries young women into places where 
they are embarrassed and put into some dan- 
ger, while the commissions are usually smaller 
than the output of time and energy warrant. 
For undergraduates, then, the dean of 
women must find whatever employment dur- 



PROBLEM OF STUDENT EMPLOYMENT 105 

ing the year the college community affords, 
assign it with care to the right students, 
standardize it as to hours and compensation, 
and educate, where it is necessary, both em- 
ployer and employee. For the summer she 
must be ready to receive inquiries as to stu- 
dent help, and fill positions where she can. 

When one comes to graduate students, they 
are usually provided with money, though it 
be a modest sum, or have scholarships or fel- 
lowships; they are thus cared for without 
special work by the dean's office. Where 
graduates of the university wish to take up 
employment other than teaching, it is better 
for every one concerned — prospective em- 
ployee, dean of women, and employer — if 
the placing be done through the "intercol- 
legiate bureaus of occupations," maintained 
for women at the present time in three cities. 
These bureaus are supported financially and 
morally by the alumnae of the colleges or uni- 
versities which wish to aid them, and by the 
fees paid by employers and employees. These 
fees are not large, and as a consequence the 
alumnse associations must be called upon to 
help. The bureaus which are at present in 



106 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

operation are located in New York City, 
Philadelphia, and Chicago. The latter one 
concerns state universities perhaps most vitally, 
since it lies in the center of the district where 
they are most numerous, and is only now 
developing its possibilities. The advantage of 
cooperation with the bureau is not only be- 
cause of the actual placement work which 
may through its agency be done, but because 
of the light its experience throws upon the 
work which may be done in universities in 
vocational guidance. From the records, re- 
quests, and applications which the bureau can 
show, deans of women may acquire invaluable 
information as to where the greater demand 
lies for college women who do not wish to 
teach; what preparation will be required to 
meet such demands; what experience and 
possibly what capital will be necessary. From 
such information a dean may proceed to for- 
mulate recommendations as to needed courses 
which the university would do well to provide 
for women students; she may prepare for 
vocational conference the most helpful pro- 
gram ; and she may be ready with the sound- 
est advice when next she is asked by a sopho- 



PROBLEM OF STUDENT EMPLOYMENT 107 

more what courses will help attain a given 
end. The dean of women and the placement 
bureau have every reason for cooperation. 

It is well to keep in the office of a dean of 
women a card catalogue of all women gradu- 
ates of the institution with which she is con- 
nected, showing their present address, whether 
or not they are married, in what occupation 
they are engaged, and if the occupation is 
some highly specialized form of teaching or 
some work other than teaching, by what 
means the position was acquired, what would 
be desirable preparation for it, how great the 
demand is for such work, and what is its re- 
muneration. From such a card catalogue can 
be given much information which for students 
and for statistical purposes will be invaluable. 



CHAPTER IV 

VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 

From the problem of student employment it 
is a natural transition to the vexed question 
of vocational guidance. Only within perhaps 
the last fifteen years have college women 
thought of preparing themselves through 
their college course for any occupations save 
those of teaching or of the professions. The 
college woman who went into any other sort 
of work was not only the exception, but her 
decision was almost without question the result 
of fortuitous circumstance. Ordinarily she 
found that her college course had given her the 
mental discipline and training which she could 
capitalize in her new enterprise ; but of defi- 
nite preparation due to precise foresight and 
clear-cut realization of what the new work 
would demand, she had none. Of the alumnse 
of the University of Wisconsin who are en- 
gaged in occupations other than teaching, 
there are but 92 who were graduated before 
1900 ; 130 who were graduated between 1900 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 109 

and 1909 ; and 107 who were graduated be- 
tween 1909 and 1913. These figures are most 
significant as to the increasing requests for 
college women who can take up non-teaching 
work. 

This demand for college graduates who can 
take up lines of work for which their alma 
mater makes no attempt definitely to prepare 
opens up the whole subject of vocational edu- 
cation. It also goes further back and raises 
questions which deal with profound issues, ed- 
ucational, social, and economic. College women 
have for at least half a century here in the 
United States gone almost without exception 
into teaching. Since the Civil War the enor- 
mous expansion of business has left teaching 
to the feminine part of the community because 
of the greater rewards offered men through 
professional life and mercantile enterprises. 
As long as teaching was the occupation for 
which ninety-nine per cent of the women who 
went to work after college wished to prepare, 
it was not necessary to search about for other 
courses. The B.A. and the B.S. courses pro- 
ceeded along traditional lines, with a more or 
less flexible program, but with a uniform ob- 



110 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

ject. Long ago it became evident to superin- 
tendents and principals of secondary schools 
that a number of young women were going 
into teaching, not because of an inherent love 
for the work, or a selfless passion for training 
young minds and lives, but because it was the 
obvious and about the only thing which a 
young college woman who had her own living 
to make could do. The effect of this situa- 
tion was unfortunate so far as the individual 
teacher was concerned and demoralizing in its 
effect upon the school. Teaching can be vital, 
progressive, and worth while only when the 
teacher loves her work, desires above all 
things to do it well, and regards it as a pro- 
fession in itself and not a makeshift which 
may lead to matrimony. For the sake of the 
freshmen who are being prepared for college, 
it behooves the university to help every com- 
munity rid itself of the young woman who 
teaches because her university course has pre- 
sented for her lifework only that profession. 
But the situation goes further. It is a mat- 
ter of everyday comment that women are 
taking an increasingly large and important 
place in the whole scheme of the economic 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 111 

world. For this situation there are many rea- 
sons : one is undoubtedly the tendency to de- 
layed and belated marriage. Men are marrying 
later in life than they did when we were still 
in our pioneer stage ; the increased cost of 
living, together with the heightened competi- 
tion in business and professions, make up two 
important factors in the case. A goodly num- 
ber of college women must expect not only to 
earn their own living for a term of years be- 
fore they marry, but also possibly to continue 
to work after they have become wives. The 
number has likewise increased of those women 
who are determined that no exigency shall 
find them unprepared to go back into a wage- 
earning career if, after marriage, death, ill- 
ness, or accident shall cause to devolve upon 
the wife the task of supporting her children. 
For all these reasons the college woman is 
vitally interested in the problem of a lifework 
which shall make the fullest draft upon her 
ability, her enthusiasm, and her ideals. 

Universities, as has been said in a previous 
chapter, have long prepared women for the 
same professions as are open to men, notably 
medicine and law. But even those professions 



112 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

are sending out new feelers. There is the 
whole realm of preventive medicine, the scope 
of which makes a tremendous appeal to one's 
imagination and idealism ; there is the field of 
public health, as yet but in the sowing stage; 
there is the work of drafting bills and defend- 
ing clients in the matter of accident insurance, 
mothers' pensions, child-labor laws, and work- 
ing-men's insurance, each of which will be a 
lifework in itself. But outside of these new 
developments in time-honored professions, 
there are innumerable other calls for trained 
women along the lines of teaching itself. 
New kinds of teaching are demanded : home 
economics courses are being introduced into 
elementary and secondary schools, normal 
schools, and colleges faster than the supply 
of teachers for these subjects can be provided. 
Industrial education is being discussed from 
every angle and for every purpose. Continu- 
ation schools are being organized for a double 
purpose — to make better educated and more 
intelligent citizens, and to increase the output 
of young but partially skilled labor in all sorts 
of trades. These newer schools are being sup- 
plied too often with inefficient teachers, or 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 113 

their introduction is being postponed because 
there is no adequate provision made for train- 
ing competent persons who shall have the 
requisite breadth of vision along with the spe- 
cific technical knowledge requisite to do such 
highly important and complex work. The 
state university is theoretically the culmina- 
tion of the public-school system in each State ; 
the taxpaying public has a right to expect 
that what the lower schools require the uni- 
versity will attempt to supply. A dean of 
women has a liberal education ahead of her if 
she attempts to help in putting out some con- 
structive program which shall meet the exi- 
gencies of the occasion. 

Outside of the teaching profession with its 
newer developments and the recognized pro- 
fessions like medicine and law with their pres- 
ent-day tendencies, college women are being 
drafted off into all sorts of administrative 
positions, — as deans in colleges, normal and 
high schools ; as directors of charities, social 
settlements, civic centers, and welfare work ; 
as managers of stores or departments in stores, 
of employment bureaus, and women's depart- 
ments in banks; as experts in institutional 



IM THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

management for college halls of residence, 
state institutions of all kinds, tea-rooms in 
shops or as independent enterprises ; as ma- 
terial out of which to develop high-grade 
nurses such as psychopathic wards and insti- 
tutions require. There is a constant demand 
for college women in every field of social serv- 
ice ; in secretarial work for college officers and 
for professional men and women engaged in 
medicine, surgery, etc. ; in many business po- 
sitions. Even so long a list does not exhaust 
the category. 

The question at once arises as to how far 
the college or university shall definitely pre- 
pare students for these various fields, or 
whether, indeed, it shall definitely prepare 
them at all. So far as privately endowed col- 
leges are concerned, each is free to solve the 
problem for itself, in its own way, for its own 
purposes. It would seem wise — and, as it ap- 
pears, probable — that a differentiation which 
has begun should continue in the case of the 
institutions which have a student body made 
up exclusively of women. The three types 
mentioned in the first chapter : — the college 
which maintains the B.A. course with no vo- 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 115 

cational training save what comes incidentally 
in a course which can prepare (though it does 
not define that specific purpose) for the tra- 
ditional kinds of teaching ; the college which 
prepares for vocations and makes no attempt 
to do anything else ; and the college which 
gives the first two years of its course to more 
general subjects and the last two to specialized 
training, — these are all invaluable and each 
has its place in the higher education of women. 
As a general proposition it would be rather 
generally conceded that the ideal would be 
achieved by a four years' college course whose 
aim is obtaining mental discipline, enlarging 
mental resources, and raising standards, moral, 
spiritual, and intellectual ; but for an increas- 
ingly large number of young women six or 
seven years of preparation for living or earn- 
ing a living are quite out of the question. The 
state university will probably have to provide 
all kinds within its own walls — the vocational 
course as well as the semi-vocational course, 
while at the same time it preserves intact with 
conviction and with courage its college of 
liberal arts. The state university ought not 
to become exclusively vocational ; it must still 



116 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

hold aloft a beacon light of culture and ideals. 
But it cannot ignore the vast and cyclonic 
changes which our modern industrial and eco- 
nomic life are undergoing. It must prepare 
young men and women to meet the situation 
with knowledge, confidence, high hearts, and 
high minds. 

The tendency has been in the past to de- 
velop vocational courses within the college of 
liberal arts when the demand has arisen for 
additional preparation which shall tend to a 
definite end; for instance, home economics 
courses, librarians' courses, social service 
courses, courses in commerce, in chemistry, in 
journalism, have been gradually evolved along- 
side the traditional B. A. course, within the col- 
leo^e of liberal arts. As a result there has been 
a conflict of interests, a working at cross-pur- 
poses, and a series of sad misunderstandings. 
Two possibilities present themselves ; for ex- 
ample, the University of Missouri makes a vo- 
cational course into a separate college with a 
dean at its head as soon as the course is well 
formulated and the demand for it sufficient. 
The University of Wisconsin, on the other 
hand, has retained the vocational courses in 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 117 

its college of letters and science as distinct 
courses, thereby utilizing its resources in the 
general cultural subjects if they are needed 
to reinforce the purely vocational work. 

But there is another solution which is at least 
worth consideration and argument. Would it 
not be well to put all these courses which are 
vocational in their character into a vocational 
college of the university, leaving the college of 
liberal arts intact, yet using its resources in 
English, the languages, history, economics, 
and science for the foundations of the differ- 
ent courses provided in the vocational college? 
As fast as one of these courses grows out of 
its experimental stage, it may become itself a 
college by the same process as that through 
which law, medicine, and engineering have 
passed. In this way the college of liberal arts 
would preserve its integrity, and the vocational 
courses would have freer scope for develop- 
ment. The plan is certainly worth consider- 
ing ; for though such a college would at first 
be an inchoate sort of thing, still its very 
lack of coherence and its indefiniteness of pur- 
pose would leave room for growth, and be a 
source of flexible strength. There would be an 



118 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

added advantage in such a plan in that it 
would create another coeducational college, 
and not a segregated women's vocational col- 
lege ; since the policy of state universities is 
and must be committed to coeducation, it is 
not wise to interfere with its general working 
by the formation of a college whose student 
body shall be exclusively of either sex. As the 
case is now, women do not go in any num- 
bers into the colleges of law, engineering, or 
medicine ; but there is no provision against 
such entrance, and the matter is regulated by 
supply and demand in the world at large. 

The thing to be done is to provide an A.B. 
course for young women who want it ; a course 
in each of the better organized vocations for 
the group who wish such preparation ; and a 
two years' course in the liberal arts which may 
be supplemented by two years of vocational 
work. All the time the danger of pressing vo- 
cational work too far back into the curriculum 
for all students must be kept constantly in 
mind. The best courses in home economics, 
such as that at the University of Wisconsin, 
require two years of foundation work which is 
almost entirely non-vocational, because of the 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 119 

conviction which its director has that a thor- 
ough grounding in pure science is essential to 
the best understanding of apphed science. 

With the educational policy of the institu- 
tion, of whose staff she is a member, the dean 
of women must be vitally concerned. She it 
is who stands outside all courses, yet in sym- 
pathy, with all ; who meets specialists in all 
fields with intelligence and with appreciation, 
yet must represent the university ; who sees 
the limitations of the preparatory school in its 
relation to the college, and the shortcomings 
of the college in its utilization of and assist- 
ance to the preparatory school. She should 
be able to offer constructive programs and 
far-reaching plans ; but she must be patient, 
tactful, ready to accept what she can get, 
and make that the basis for going further. 
She should be practical and not visionary ; an 
idealist who can keep her touch with what is 
possible of accomplishment. She should be a 
speciaHst in women's education at the same 
time that she retains her interest in all educa- 
tion. She will not get what she wants all at 
once ; she may not even get it at all. But with 
persistence and good temper she can present 



120 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

her cause — which is, after all, not her cause, 
but that of a generation of young women. 

Uncertain as the general plan may be, there 
are certain definite things which a dean of 
women may do in the matter of vocational 
education. First of all, she should see to it 
that each year there is held a vocational con- 
ference, at which the newer forms of teach- 
ing (such as industrial, continuation school, 
and the more specialized kinds in home eco- 
nomics and physical education) shall be dis- 
cussed, as well as occupations other than 
teaching. For each subject there should be 
available a specialist, who stands high among 
her colleagues, who shall tell what prepara- 
tion is necessary, what resources, mental and 
material, are wise, and what openings are 
actually at hand in her field. After she has 
presented her subject, there should be pro- 
vided an informal conference hour in which 
those young women who are especially inter- 
ested shall have the opportunity to receive 
the speaker's individual attention and by ques- 
tions and answers make the best possible use 
of the advice and information thus brought 
to them. It has been found wisest at the Uni- 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 121 

versity of Wisconsin to have this conference 
during the first week of the second semester, 
with the formal sessions on Thursday and 
Friday, and the informal conference hours on 
Saturday. These concentrated daily sessions 
are more helpful than the isolated lecture five 
or six times a year. If the conferences are 
held annually, as has proved a good idea, only 
a half-dozen occupations should be presented 
each year, and these with great fullness and 
detail. It is also wise to enHst the aid of the 
young women students in working out the de- 
tails of the conference ; for instance, a com- 
mittee of the women's league or the self-gov- 
ernment association should arrange for the 
entertainment of the speakers, for advertising 
the conference among the girls, for arranging 
the informal conference hours. One of the 
assistants in the office of the dean of women 
may have immediate charge, with a student 
committee working under her direction and 
with her cooperation. The conference will 
prove much more generally helpful and far 
more vital if the students help to organize and 
carry it on than if it is all provided for them, 
and they have but to attend the meetings. 



122 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

The program for the conference held in 
Madison in February, 1914, is given below : — 

Program 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY nth, 3.30 P.M. 

Opening Address . . . Miss Katharine S. Alvord 

Chicago Bureau of Occupations . . Miss Helen Bennett 

Manager of Bureau 
Conference hour 9-10 a.m. February 12th 
Opportunities in Secretarial Work . . Miss Eva Pope 

Conference hour 9-10 a.m. February 11th 
Landscape Architecture as an Industry for Women 

Mrs. Annette McCrae 
Conference hour 9-10 a.m. February 12th 

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 12th, 3.30 P.M. 

Federal Civil Service Positions . Mr. Robert Catherwood 

Conference hour 9-10 a.m. February 13th 
Opportunities in State Positions . . Miss E. Lundberg 

State Factory Inspector, Wisconsin 

Conference hour to be announced 
Municipal Work . . . Mrs. Caroline Bartlett Crane 

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13th, 3.30 P.M. 

Nursing as a Profession for College Women .... 

Mrs. Elizabeth Fox 
Superintendent of Nurses, Dayton 
Conference hour 9-10 a.m. February 13th 
Opportunities in Playground Work . Miss Emily Harris 

Supervisor of Playgrounds, Chicago 
Conference hour 9-10 a.m. February 14th 
Opportunities in Charity Organization Work Miss Ethel Bird 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 123 

The outside cover reads as follows : — 

THIED VOCATIONAL 
CONFERENCE ON 

OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN 

IN OCCUPATIONS OTHER THAN TEACHING 

LATHROP HALL 

FEBRUARY 11, 12, 13, 1914 

UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE WOMEN STUDENTS 
OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN i 

In February, 1915, the conference is prob- 
ably to deal exclusively with occupations open 
to graduates of the courses in home economics, 
since that course is developing rapidly at the 
University of Wisconsin, and affords especially 
definite information. It is, moreover, some- 
thing the university provides at this time 
within its own walls. 

Besides the vocational conference, the dean 

^ The Extension Division of the University of Wisconsin 
has published a bulletin of the second vocational conference 
held under the auspices of the Self-Government Association 
in February, 1913. This bulletin contains the papers read at 
the conference, as well as a rdsumd of the vocational courses 
actually given in the university. It can be obtained from the 
Extension Department of the University of Wisconsin. 



124 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

of women or one of her assistants must be 
ready at all times to talk over with young 
women students the possibilities in many vo- 
cations. For this purpose the following card 
will be found helpful. In all student work, be 
it said, the " case system/' or card catalogue 
method, will simplify records, and provide a 
continuous history of each student's college 
life so far as her connection with any aspect 
of the dean's office is concerned. Moreover, a 
new incumbent can take up the work with 
far more ease and rapidity than if the whole 
business of the office were reposing in the 
dean's mind. The card follows : — 



VOCATIONAL DIRECTION 


•NAME 




CLASS 


MADISON ADDRESS 






HOME ADDRESS 






MAJOR 




MINORS 


DO YOU EXPECT TO 


BE SELF-SUPPORTING? 




WHAT VOCATION DO 


YOU PREFER 7 





For the purpose of this informal vocational 
guidance, the office of the dean of women 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 125 

should contain catalogues of vocational col- 
leges, of schools offering special courses such 
as landscape gardening, and whatever litera- 
ture is available on the subject. The person 
giving the advice should, of course, have had 
wide knowledge along the line of the inception 
and growth of vocational education, as well 
as an intimate touch with the problem which 
vocational guidance in elementary and sec- 
ondary schools is endeavoring to solve, along 
with the continuation school problem. One's 
information must be broad and deep before 
one attempts to turn young women into fields 
where returns are still uncertain and the de- 
mand inconstant. Teaching in public and pri- 
vate schools is not too well paid, nor are its 
conditions anywhere nearly ideal; but it has 
the advantage of being well formulated with 
a certain tenure in the case of even moderate 
success. To divert young women out of the 
beaten path into the field of pioneer work must 
be done with the greatest care, after every 
factor on both sides — that of the work and of 
the worker — has been considered long and 
earnestly. 

If vocational guidance could be done in a 



126 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

university by a woman who at the same time 
teaches in the department of economies or 
social science, the combination would be ad- 
mirable. Vocational guidance needs to be given 
by some one who has the requisite standing 
with the faculty, who has a specialty in which 
she can teach and through which she can hold 
professional rank, before this highly impor- 
tant branch of university work developes as 
it should and as it can. If the person thus 
equipped can for her teaching be identified 
with a specific department, preferably, as has 
been said, those dealing with economics or 
social science, and for her vocational guidance 
work be identified with the office of the dean 
of women, the whole fabric of administration 
of women's affairs would be strengthened. 
None of us yet perceive what vocational guid- 
ance may do; but of its value we have clean- 
cut convictions. 



CHAPTER V 

SELF-GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATIONS 

In an earlier chapter it has been shown how 
self-government associations arose in women's 
colleges — from an appreciation of the value 
which this form of discipline and civic educa- 
tion possesses, combined with the practical 
need of a change from the traditional manner 
in which colleges were handling problems of 
student life. It was natural that these associa- 
tions should assume form in the residence col- 
leo^es before the idea should even be considered 
in institutions which had no halls of residence. 
The women's colleges first felt the need of 
such organizations and first formed them ; few 
state universities have them even yet. In the 
University of Wisconsin, the inception in 1897 
of the Self -Government Association of the 
women students was due to the experience 
which the first dean of women, Miss Anne 
Crosby Emery, brought from her connection 
with the origin and growth of the Self-Go vern- 
ment Association in her alma mater, Bryn 



128 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

Mawr College. Other universities, such as that 
of Michigan, have women's leagues which do 
about the same work ; but the University of 
Wisconsin was the first to have an organiza- 
tion similar to that which exists in every promi- 
nent women's college. It is possible that a 
women's league which embraces all univer- 
sity women's activities, and handles through 
committees each phase of student life thus 
represented, would in a better way meet the 
situation; that is, if there were an athletic 
committee of the women's league dealing with 
athletic affairs instead of a separate athletic 
association, a self-government committee in- 
stead of a self-government association, a social 
committee, a dramatic committee, etc., instead 
of separate organizations for each of these 
interests, the whole condition would be im- 
proved. We are " clubbed " to death these 
days ; we have in colleges a plethora of separate 
clubs and societies and organizations, each with 
its officers and its conviction of the superior 
claim which it has over all other student activ- 
ities. The need and the demand, which is felt 
alike by students and by administrative officers, 
are for a simplification of the " extra-curricu- 



SELF-GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATIONS 129 

lai?^!.^ctivities» It is possible that a many-sided 
■women's league would meet the situation ; cer- 
tainly such a plan works in the University of 
Michigan. Each institution must ascertain for 
itself just what kind of central organization 
will best subserve its ends and can be most 
effective in the community. But whatever the 
name of their central organization, there are 
certain fundamental things it must be and do ; 
since a self-government association may rest 
upon these principles and accomplish these 
ends, it is to that form of student organization 
that this discussion will be confined. 

The questions which at once arise in the 
mind of the skeptic are : " Why have a self- 
government association at all ? Why cannot 
the faculty regulate student life ? Is that not 
a part cf the work they may legitimately be 
called upon to perform ? How can such an 
organization be made effective in a coeduca- 
tional institution?" To these questions this 
chapter attempts to give the answer, not from 
theory but from practice. 

In the first place, a self-government associa- 
tion is the creator and conserver of student 
public opinion. The consensus of that opinion 



130 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

finds expression in a few rules which govern 
the social life of the women students, and in 
the general attitude which says, " That sort 
of thing is not done here." It is only, the 
writer believes, through cumulative student 
opinion that freshmen in a state university 
can be brought into line in matters of control 
quickly and without friction. Many students 
bring to college the attitude which dictated 
their behavior in the high schools — the atti- 
tude that teachers are natural enemies ; that to 
outwit a teacher or an administrative officer is 
the part of cleverness and will insure stand- 
ing in the community ; that rules are to be 
evaded where possible, and may be broken if 
students can do so with impunity. But just as 
this attitude is dictated by the desire to stand 
well with one's fellows, just so an effective self- 
government association breaks down the false- 
ness of this attitude immediately. Indeed, a 
false attitude never gets a start ; for the first 
thing the freshman finds is a new standard by 
which she will be judged ; and that standard 
is made up of the very elements with which 
the new student hopes to come into harmony. 
Moreover, this standard is formulated by the 



SELF-GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATIONS 131 

older students, those young women who have, 
by virtue of less immaturity and a larger col- 
lege experience, found out what is wise and 
what is expedient ; and no administrative offi- 
cer can enlist more effectively the aid of older 
students in solving student problems than 
through a self-government association. Far 
more important than this aid to administra- 
tion is the fact that such an association is a 
most potent means for training young women 
in the best ways which are available to deal 
with young women and children in the world 
beyond the college walls. Nowadays the de- 
mand for college women in social service is 
beyond the supply ; not only in actual social 
service work in its well-formulated aspects, but 
also in connection with school-teaching, with 
church work, with summer camp life, with the 
" Camp-Fire Girls " movement. No matter 
whether a young woman just out of college 
goes at once into a wage-earning occupation 
or into her home, she must be ready for the 
demands which the community in which she 
finds herself will be sure to make upon her by 
virtue of the very fact that she has been to 
college. Noblesse oblige seems blazoned for 



132 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

the college graduate on every wall. With such 
insistent demands the university must reckon ; 
it must feel upon itself the duty of preparing 
its graduates, so far as it can, for their work 
of putting back into the community in service 
a part of what has been received in taxes. 
Such preparation can be given most effectively 
by a good self-government association. Here 
young women learn how to be tactful, firm, 
honest, adaptable, time-saving, and capable — 
traits which will be of value in the school- 
room and out of it. Our high schools are 
having to meet the same sort of social prob- 
lems which confront our universities; and 
high-school teachers are having to regulate a 
burdensome social life and athletic program 
just as colleges do. The normal schools share 
the difficulty, but not in so large away. Young 
women who in college have had experience in 
moulding and directing student opinion will 
find an ample field for their talents in con- 
nection with their teaching work. Moreover, 
normal and high schools are beginning to put 
in an administrative officer whose position and 
duties are very similar to those of the dean of 
women in the state university, and the officers 



SELF-GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATIONS 133 

of a self-government association, or the house 
president in a college hall of residence, are 
especially equipped to handle just such work. 
The demand for young women who can do 
administrative work in normal, high, and 
grammar schools is at present greater than the 
supply. Other places which will require the 
apprenticeship afforded by self-government 
associations are in playground work and in 
many forms of social service. 

Still another important raison d^etre of the 
self-government association is the aid it affords 
in developing the independent social life and 
expanding the means of intercourse among the 
young women students. Nearly all coeduca- 
tional institutions utterly miss the sort of thing 
that life in a women's college gives. A coedu- 
cational institution gives another thing ; but 
it does not bring out as it might the inde- 
pendent life of the young women. The young 
men's standard of judging their fellow stu- 
dents among the young women is commonly 
that of social availability, and that only. 
Young women judge one another by a quite 
different measure. As a consequence, many a 
girl finds a full and wholesome development 



134 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

in a women's college who would go out of a 
coeducational university socially as inadequate 
as she went in. The dean of women is the one 
who ought to feel this matter keenly ; it is her 
business to see that young women shall, so far 
as is humanly possible, get, in addition to the 
advantages which coeducation offers, those 
which undeniably the women's college affords. 
A central organization to which all the young 
women registered in the university ipso facto 
belong, which deals with the separate life of 
the women students and has their problems as 
its vital concern, is the most effective instru- 
ment for achieving that end. 

There are, to be sure, limitations which a 
self-government association must and does 
feel. The power of regulating student affairs 
and enforcing discipline over students must 
always in the last analysis rest in the hands of 
the faculty and its administrative officers. The 
power which admits students to and graduates 
students from an institution is logically — and 
legally — the only one which can sever a stu- 
dent's relation with the college, whether for a 
brief period or for all time. No parent would 
be willing to send a daughter to a college 



SELF-GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATIONS 135 

where the faculty had no disciplinary power 
because it had all been given over to stu- 
dents ; or where the faculty possessed no right 
of review or appeal in a case brought and con- 
ducted by students. Moreover, there are deli- 
cate problems of discipline which it would be 
most unwise to turn over for handling and 
decision to young, immature women. A dean 
of women deals with a good many situations 
in the course of a year which it would be un- 
wise and unfair to turn over to students. It is 
impossible to let immature students run every- 
thing — that goes without saying. But these 
limitations do not seem to the writer to make 
any difference in the fundamental situation, 
since the work of punishing infractions of 
rules is but one aspect of the work of a self- 
government association ; that work is far more 
largely constructive than it is punitive, and 
where punishment must come, it is very rarely 
that a faculty will not enforce the recommen- 
dation made by a student organization. Stu- 
dent opinion is, as has been said in an earlier 
chapter, sound and wholesome when one gets 
to the core of it ; and when students agree 
that one of their number needs something 



136 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

more drastic than a reprimand and a warning, 
a faculty will find upon investigation that the 
situation deserves what the students recom- 
mend. 

Men's self-government organizations are 
rare. That method of controlling young men 
students is but just coming into use and is in the 
experimental stage. Where in a coeducational 
university there is one, it should undoubtedly 
deal exclusively with problems of student life 
among the men just as the women's associa- 
tion deals exclusively with women's problems. 
But there should be a joint committee repre- 
senting the two organizations which can deal 
with questions affecting student life as a whole, 
such as the honor system, the regulation of 
dances, class elections, etc. Young women in 
a coeducational institution are rarely received 
on anything like an equal footing in the control 
of college affairs; they are made vice-presidents 
and secretaries of classes, but they rarely re- 
ceive offices which really count, nor are they put 
on important committees. They get the crumbs 
from the college table, usually making no pro- 
test, and the effect is unfortunate for both 
sexes. A joint committee would immensely 



SELF-GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATIONS 137 

help the situation, and the scope of its work 
would increase as its possibilities come to be 
realized. It would be well if from time to time 
the dean of women and the man who holds a 
similar position with regard to the men stu- 
dents could meet with this joint committee; 
the result of such conferences would enlighten 
both faculty and students.^ 

The relations which the self-government 
association shall bear to the different groups 
in the community have been spoken of in pre- 
vious chapters ; but it may be well to summarize 
here the whole matter. Each hall of residence, 
each Greek-letter society house, each lodging* 
house, and each district of " town girls " is a 
unit in the association. Each of these units 
has its representative on the board, the halls 
of residence (as the largest groups) having 
three for each hall. It is the business of 
these representatives to report to their groups 
from time to time the matters with which the 
board meetings have dealt, to ask for sugges- 

1 See Appendix A for the constitution which the Self-Gov- 
ernmefit Association at the University of Wisconsin has 
adopted, together with the model set of house rules it pre- 
sents each fall to halls of residence, sorority houses, and 
lodging-houses for adoption by the residents. 



138 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

tions with which the board might concern 
itself, and to see to the enforcement of the 
rules which have been adopted. In most cases 
the house president will be the self-government 
association representative, and will thus add 
not only to her duties, but also to her author- 
ity. Members of the association who are not 
on the board may be drawn in for committee 
work, such as that required in organizing a vo- 
cational conference, or for serving at teas. In- 
deed, it is a sine qua non of the success which 
an association must achieve that its ramifica- 
tions be as numerous and far-reaching as pos- 
sible. 

The relation of the dean of women to the 
association must be intimate but not dictatorial, 
advisory rather than mandatory, cordial but 
not familiar. The oJSicers should be sure of her 
cooperation, be convinced that her knowledge 
of self-government associations is larger and 
wiser than theirs, and be keenly aware that 
she will give them her support, but will not 
under any circumstances take the helm and 
run the organization. It is a matter for the 
dean to decide in the light of the situation as to 
whether she will attend board meetings or not. 



SELF-GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATIONS 139 

The writer attends only when she wishes to 
present a matter to the board or has been asked 
to be present. Students discuss more freely 
and feel their responsibility more keenly when 
they are left to conduct their own meetings. 
The dean of women can do far more in infor- 
mal conference with a committee than in open 
meeting with a whole board or an entire or- 
ganization. She should, however, be so closely 
in touch with what is being done in the wom- 
en's colleges and in other universities that she 
is ready to suggest new activities which the 
seK-government association may well assume, 
or old forms which might well be eliminated. 
The activities of an all-inclusive org^aniza- 
tion like a self-government association are only 
limited by the time and strength of the offi- 
cers and members ; but there are certain ines- 
capable obligations which must be assumed. 
For instance, the first week of college brings 
an influx of new students, most of whom are 
inexperienced, eager, a little embarrassed and 
a good deal at sea. The majority are freshmen ; 
but in our state universities, especially where 
the normal schools are equipped to do two 
years of college work, a large number will en- 



140 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

ter as juniors. If the junior adviser system is in 
use, and the Young Women's Christian Asso- 
ciation is active, many of these new students 
will have received letters during the summer 
soon after their applications for entrance Lave 
been received in the registrar's office, which 
will contain offers from old students to do any- 
thing in their power which may render easy 
to the newcomer the days of registration and 
of getting settled in lodgings and classroom. 
Sometimes these new students ask to be met 
at trains, and to be conducted to the univer- 
sity. The local or college Young Women's 
Christian Association should always see that 
a woman is employed at the railroad stations 
both night and day during the opening days 
of the semester to look after incoming women 
students ; but even if that be done, older girls 
may be most helpful to incoming freshmen 
if their aid is asked. The dean of women 
will always find seniors who will be glad to 
help in her office during registration days, act- 
ing as guides to the new students in finding 
where they are to live, in ascertaining the loca- 
tion of university buildings, and in introduc- 
ing them to their faculty advisers. Every 



SELF-GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATIONS 141 

afternoon during these opening days the self- 
government association may serve tea in the 
women's buildings where the upper-class stu- 
dents brinof new students to meet one another 
and get into touch with the community side 
of college life. The dean of women will al- 
ways attend these teas and will often speak 
informally at that time. Thus all the ma- 
chinery for getting freshmen into the spirit 
of the university and for enabling them to get 
the most out of their year will be set in motion 
at once and altogether. 

Throughout the year, usually once a month, 
the self-government association may give an 
informal tea to which the girls may come from 
laboratories and classrooms, when there may 
or may not be a short informal program, but 
where girls from all the different groups may 
mingle freely and with a spirit of good com- 
radeship. Such hospitality is productive of 
results out of all proportion to its slight cost 
and the small amount of effort involved in 
carrying it out. These teas are paid for out of 
the small annual fee which each girl must pay, 
and therefore all girls feel free to attend. 
These teas should be announced to each house 



142 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

and each group through its self-government 
association board representative, thereby in- 
suring a thorough advertisement. 

Another form of activity which a self-gov- 
ernment association may carry on is the con- 
duct of half a dozen "girl-parties" during 
the year. That is, parties to which girls alone 
are asked should be one kind of social activ- 
ity receiving encouragement from the women 
students' organization. At the University of 
Wisconsin there are four of these parties dur- 
ing the year : a costume party on the Saturday 
evening nearest Hallowe'en, another in the 
spring on the Saturday evening nearest April 
first, and a matinee dance on a Saturday after- 
noon in each semester. Girls come out to these 
parties who never attend any other, and the 
most sober-minded frolic about in astonishing 
fashion. Through such devices the separate 
life of the women students may be fostered, 
and from a temporary interest aroused in an 
organization, because it provides a new sort 
of social diversion, may grow a thoroughgoing 
cooperation in all its work. The point is to 
arouse a belief in the association and what it 
stands for; after such a belief is implanted, 



SELF-GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATIONS 143 

working in and for the organization is a mat- 
ter of course. 

We have spoken above of the junior ad- 
viser system. This is a scheme adopted to in- 
sure the dean of women the cooperation which 
upper-class women may give to the work of 
assimilating new students into the whole group, 
as well as to develop in the older students a 
sense of responsibility toward newcomers in 
the community. The incoming junior girls 
are asked to send their summer addresses to 
the chairman of a committee appointed by the 
self-government association, if they are willing 
to act as advisers to one or more new girls. 
Juniors are asked instead of seniors, because 
the latter carry all the heavy of&ces in college 
and because they have ordinarily heavy semi- 
nar and thesis work to carry throughout their 
last year. Moreover, juniors need training in 
assuming responsibility more than any other 
group of students ; they are ready and eager 
for it, they will take it in various clubs and 
organizations in any case, and it is well to 
capitalize their enthusiasm for the university 
as well as for their personal interests. Each 
junior who has signified her desire to advise 



144 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

a freshman or two will have sent to her the 
name and home address of her " advisee," if 
the information can be obtained by the dean's 
office before college opens ; otherwise the 
junior will be notified as soon as the freshmen 
have enrolled. The junior adviser goes at once 
to call upon her " advisee/' offers her services 
in any way possible, and is supposed to escort 
her to the teas and other college functions of 
the opening days. If the freshman is not get- 
tmg out of her experience what she should, 
if she is making herself conspicuous in the 
community by loud dress or noisy conduct on 
the street, or if she is not getting hold of her 
classroom work, — in such crises the dean of 
women and the junior adviser may together 
be able to help her out. 

The junior adviser system is not ideal; it fre- 
quently breaks down after the first six weeks 
of college ; but even so it serves its purpose. 
The first days and weeks of a girl's college ex- 
perience are the most crucial, and all forces in 
the community should be made to cooperate 
in order that students may be headed in the 
right direction and not jeopardize their whole 
college careers by some piece of nonsense in 



SELF-GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATIONS 145 

the beginning. Young women are naturally 
conservative in matters of conduct^ and the 
girl who wishes to be conspicuous by reason 
of her behavior is the exception. Nearly all 
college girls care above everything else to 
stand well with those whom they consider 
leaders in the community ; and they therefore 
prefer to be told at the outset '' what is not 
done" in the community, rather than to be al- 
lowed to blunder along until they have gone 
too far to retrieve themselves with the very 
leaders they had hoped to know best. The 
junior adviser system cuts down the number 
of such tragedies — for such they are to many 
a freshman. Much that has been said above 
applies with equal force to new students who 
are not freshmen — especially to juniors from 
normal schools and other colleges or universi- 
ties. The largest accretions of new students 
are either freshmen or juniors, and for the lat- 
ter juniors are better advisers than seniors, 
since a student will take advice more kindly 
from a member of her own class than from 
some one who is but one year beyond her 
in college experience. Juniors and freshmen 
naturally affiliate, as do sophomores and sen- 



146 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

iors ; it is well to take advantage of these 
natural groupings rather than to try to create 
others. 

Some universities use a "calling system" 
instead of a junior adviser plan. The writer 
has no information which would show such a 
system in successful operation. Paying calls 
is a futile business in any walk of life ; but 
its artificiality and general ineffectiveness in 
the matter of making friendships are nowhere 
more apparent than when it is in use in a col- 
lege community. Very few students in a state 
university have been given over to calling be- 
fore they came to college; they have little 
time for social life of that kind, and they feel 
its insufficient basis in any large conception 
of social life. The very informality of college 
life is a great part of its charm, and formal 
calls do not fit in with its tenor or aims. 

Besides developing a social life among the 
women students, creating public opinion, and 
regulating standards, a self-government asso- 
ciation has another valuable form of activity. 
Where there is a loan fund, every girl should 
be interested in contributing to it; and an 
association of women students would naturally 



SELF-GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATIONS 147 

be the channel through which such contribu- 
tions might be made. Each year some special 
function might be given with an admission 
fee, the net proceeds of which are to go to 
the loan ^fund. Such an association ought 
also to offer each year a scholarship of say 
$125 to be awarded on the basis of classroom 
work and the need of assistance. This scholar- 
ship may come out of the annual dues, or 
may be provided for by a special function ; 
but with the present plethora of social func- 
tions, whatever can be provided for out of 
annual dues should be cared for in that way. 

The last form of activity in which the self- 
government association interests itself is the 
vocational conference, which has been dis- 
cussed in a previous chapter. 

One final word remains to be said as to co- 
operation among self-government associations, 
women's leagues, or whatever grouping one 
may use to accomplish the object deans of 
women have in view when they foster organi- 
zations which shall include all young women 
registered in a university. The Eastern wom- 
en's colleges have for a number of years had 
an intercollegiate self-government association, 



148 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

where representatives of each organization 
might meet once a year at some one of the col- 
leges which hold membership in the organiza- 
tion ; at these meetings the problems which all 
have to meet have been discussed with mutual 
profit. The representatives of the Self -Govern- 
ment Association at the University of Wis- 
consin asked permission to go to the Eastern 
conference as visitors in 1912, and the follow- 
ing spring invited delegates representing the 
state universities and coeducational univer- 
sities in the Mississippi Valley to meet in 
Madison to form an organization similar to 
that which they had attended. The problems 
which state universities have to meet are quite 
different from those with which segregated 
and privately endowed women's colleges are 
concerned ; and while even among themselves 
these state institutions vary greatly, there are 
nevertheless certain limitations, certain ele- 
ments of strength, and certain ideals common 
to all. The meeting in Madison was the means 
of forming a permanent organization ; the sec- 
ond meeting was held at Indiana University 
in the spring of 1914, and these annual con- 
ferences promise to be as vital in assisting 



SELF-GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATIONS 149 

their members as they are in their relation to 
the work of deans of women. Cooperation 
within each state institution, and with every 
other like university, is a good concrete lesson 
for young women to learn and to carry forth 
into the outside world.^ 

1 See Appendix B. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE SOCIAL LIFE OF STUDENTS 

Our American colleges have no apparent need 
for the adage, "All work and no play makes 
Jack a dull boy." On the contrary, a visitor 
to most college communities, especially if co- 
education is the policy of the institution, is 
struck with the casual way in which the intel- 
lectual work is viewed by the average student, 
and asks himself how diplomas are ever granted 
or earned. Every college feels the same con- 
flict between the requirements of the curricu- 
lum on the one hand and the demands of the 
so-called "extra-curricular activities" on the 
other; but the struggle is naturally greatest 
and most difficult to deal with in the coedu- 
cational institution. There young men and 
young women are residing in the same com- 
munity, having come from every part of the 
country and every town in the State; the op- 
portunity to widen one's acquaintance and 
enlarge one's social experience is probably 
greater for most students than it has ever 



THE SOCIAL LIFE OF STUDENTS 151 

been before, and the temptation to social di- 
version is well-nigh overwhelming. The men 
students carry on among themselves about 
the same activities, political, athletic, and so- 
cial, which are common in men's colleges ; the 
women students have the sort of activities 
(but probably fewer of them) which are the 
order of the day in women's colleges ; but be- 
sides these there is the whole realm of diver- 
sions in which both men and women take 
part. The situation is thus made at least one 
third more dif&cult to handle. Where a young 
man or a young woman may take a better 
social position (better in his or her own judg- 
ment) for less money and get more fun for 
the outlay than elsewhere, one must be more 
than human not to do it. That is the situa- 
tion at present in our coeducational institu- 
tions. The report has gone abroad in the land 
that going to college is more fun for your 
money than any other kind of diversion, and 
the tidal wave of irresponsible joyousness 
which comes surging each fall into college 
towns presents a problem which may well 
make the hair of administrative officers stand 
on end. Vaguely and incidentally many of 



152 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

these irresponsible students want the educa- 
tion which the college gives; but there is no 
such eager passion for, no such single-minded 
devotion to, learning as was characteristic of 
university student bodies forty years ago. 
The number of students who want first of all 
the education which the institution affords is 
probably greater than it was earlier, but this 
element of serious-minded students seems some- 
times to be put into the background and nearly 
swamped by the large aggregation who " come 
for the college life." 

Yet the social life of students must always 
be subordinated to the demands of the curri- 
culum. The college is not primarily a social 
settlement, nor (as one witty college president 
has remarked) a country club. It is a place 
for mental training and discipHne, and for the 
implanting of all sorts of high ideals. To its 
fundamental purpose each institution must 
adhere; it must put that purpose into con- 
crete form, in definite language, and having 
made clear its purpose, it must set about 
achieving it. By keeping their vision clear 
and their convictions strong, administrative 
officers must keep the institution on the right 



THE SOCIAL LIFE OF STUDENTS 153 

track, headed the right way. Each will have 
different problems to meet and different solu- 
tions to offer ; but the aim of all will be in 
the large the same. The plan of insisting upon 
specified ^^ weighted averages" — that is, of 
averaging all studies of each student accord- 
ing^ to the number of credits involved — be- 
fore a student may take part in any activity 
has proved a spur to many weaklings. When 
the weighted average to be attained is set high 
enough, the plan is a good one, although it is 
surprising and disconcerting to hear rumors 
that an athletic department is urging instruc- 
tors to be lenient in marking those young 
men and women who play at strategic posi- 
tions in college games. Most institutions put 
students who are not feeble enough to be 
dropped, but who for any reason are not doing 
satisfactory work in the classroom, on " proba- 
tion " ; and no college whose standards are 
worth anything will permit a student on pro- 
bation to take part in any college activity, 
whether as of&cer or as member of a team or 
on a cast for a play. It is clear that a student 
ought to be made to understand that he must 
do his work with at least a fair degree of sue- 



154 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

cess before he can go into organized play; 
and that unless he conforms to this rule he 
cannot choose his sports. There is a break- 
down in character involved many times in 
letting students neglect the things which are 
hard and which mean hours of drudgery, sub- 
stituting for the satisfaction of a hard task 
accomplished the indulgence in easy decision 
and the evasion of what is manifestly one's 
duty. 

Another method of regulating indulgence 
in outside activities is by the " point system." 
This mode of regulating student activities 
originated in the women's colleges of the East. 
By this method a certain arbitrary standard, 
say twenty points, is set up as the maximum 
which a student may take in any one year. 
The different offices in student organizations 
are then rated on a scale which will vary ac- 
cording to the work involved in the position. 
For instance — the president of the Self-Gov- 
ernment Association will find her office rated 
at fifteen points ; the president of the Young 
Women's Christian Association at fourteen 
points ; the president of the Women's Athletic 
Association at twelve points ; other offices will 



THE SOCIAL LIFE OF STUDENTS 155 

be rated at ten, eight, or five points, with small 
committee places at one or two points. Thus 
a student finds the number of offices she may 
fill automatically limited. The reason for the 
development of such a system lies in the fact 
that after the students who are on probation 
and those who fall below the weighted average 
have been weeded out, there remains a great 
mass of students who are mediocre and go 
into only one or two kinds of play ; and a com- 
paratively small group who are capable and 
able both inside and outside the classroom. 
Some of these students fall by the wayside 
because they keep up their studies to a high 
average and do besides all the work in admin- 
istering college activities which their mates 
may urge upon them. Others would do good 
work in the classroom if they were not known 
to be so good along lines of play that they 
are constantly drafted into this and that organ- 
ization, and because of superior executive abil- 
ity assume at once a prominent position. The 
point system is destined, as has been said in a 
previous chapter, to meet two situations — to 
prevent a few students from being overbur- 
dened by reason of their ability in conducting 



156 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

outside activities, and to draw into such activi- 
ties a larger number of students in order to 
distribute the labor and give more students 
whatever value there may be in conducting or 
assisting in them.^ If the point system can be 
carried out, it does much good ; it can be put 
and kept in motion by a committee of the self- 
government association, or by the senior honor 
society if that organization be made up of 
heads of all the student activities. 

But the most potent method of regulating 
extra-curricular activities is by maintaining a 
high standard in the classroom, a rigid system 
of marking written work, examinations, and 
" quizzes," and a vigorous administration in 
enforcing conformity to these standards. The 
state university here labors under peculiar dif- 
ficulties ; it must at no time make its fresh- 
man work too far beyond what the average 
high school in the State can accomplish, and 
it cannot too vigorously weed out poor stu- 
dents. Its danger is in encouraging something 
even below mediocrity, and, in doing justice 
to the average student, to do an injustice to 
the better students. Possibly the state uni- 

1 See Appendix A, pp. 233-34. 



THE SOCIAL LIFE OF STUDENTS 157 

versity labors under no greater difficulties in 
the matter than does the privately endowed 
institution ; the remedy is the same in both. 
The classroom work should be carefully graded, 
each year's task being harder and requiring 
more real power than was involved the previ- 
ous year. Students should, moreover, be held 
rigorously to a satisfactory performance of 
their programs. Whatever time one can spend 
beyond that in legitimate, high-grade play 
which shall refresh and not exhaust him, which 
shall develop his social side without lowering 
his standards, he is entitled to apportion as he 
will. Young women and young men should be 
measured exactly alike in this matter. 

After the individual's social activities have 
been cut down to a normal amount, there still 
remains to the administrative officer the prob- 
lem of the kind and standard of activities 
which are in vogue in the community. Elimi- 
nating athletics and literary societies for the 
time being, what other kinds of diversion are 
most numerous? College administrators and 
college faculties whose tastes are refined and 
cultivated are constantly offended and embar- 
rassed by the low-class vaudeville, the low-class 



158 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

so-called "musical comedy/' minstrel show, 
or circus which students put out as worthy 
their attention and as representing college 
dramatic activities. The college publications 
which students edit, especially their alleged 
" funny papers/' are as a rule not worth the 
time spent on putting them out. The level of 
college productions must be above that of the 
world outside, if they are to be worth while 
either at the time they are produced or as a 
means of cultivatinof student taste. In this re- 
gard men students are the greatest sinners ; 
but it is discouraging to see how women stu- 
dents in coeducational institutions ape their 
brothers in getting up plays or editing special 
editions of college papers, and fall short of the 
standards which their sisters in women's col- 
leges achieve in similar tasks. There is so 
much good clean fun in the world, there is 
such a wealth of good drama in the market, 
and such real literary ability among students, 
that the case is clearly one of low standards 
and by no means one of lack of power. The 
time is ripe for a definite campaign to educate 
student opinion. There should be a joint com- 
mittee of faculty and students which should 



THE SOCIAL LIFE OF STUDENTS 159 

vise plays and publications, but better still 
should work out some constructive program 
by which student opinion can be formed and 
student ideals raised. 

The social life in a coeducational institu- 
tion will be and should be of three sorts : that 
for men alone, that for women alone, and that 
for men and women together. The joint com- 
mittee of faculty and students should take 
cognizance of that fact, and while it will con- 
cern itself most with the third kind, leaving 
the second to the immediate care of the dean 
of women, and providing some means of help- 
ing the first, such a joint committee will nec- 
essarily include in its large plans all three 
sorts. ^ 

Besides being assistant chairman of such a 
committee, the dean of women should be the 
leader (behind the curtain) of the social life 
which concerns the women students alone. 

1 A committee with this purpose has just been inaugu- 
rated at the University of Wisconsin after months of 
thought and labor on the part of a special committee of the 
faculty appointed for the purpose of formulating a plan. 
The report accompanying the plan when it was presented to 
the faculty is in Appendix C. It is intended that the sub- 
committees under this plan shall where possible be joint 
committees for conference with students, and be the means 
of raising and refining standards. 



160 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

The object of their separate social life, as she 
conceives it, will in its narrower sense en- 
deavor to develop among the young women 
real friendships on deep and broad lines. As 
has been said before, women and men do not 
judge women by the same standards ; and un- 
less a definite effort is made to cultivate a 
young woman's ideal of what is the finest and 
best type of her own sex at her own age, she 
is too apt to accept unquestionably the stand- 
ard by which young men gauge her — by 
her social availability. The Greek-letter so- 
ciety and the hall of residence help to culti- 
vate these friendships among women students, 
especially if their attention is drawn to the 
matter and they are brought to serious thought 
over it. Other ideals which are to be cultivated 
if we use social life in its more restricted sense 
are the development of courtesy and of a so- 
cial ease which comes from consideration and 
thought for other people's comfort and happi- 
ness ; the growth in power of adaptability, of 
ease and grace in getting on with people. Col- 
lege students are prone to exaggerate the value 
of being what they call " a good mixer " — 
that is, a person who can be on good terms 



THE SOCIAL LIFE OF STUDENTS 161 

with any and all people on very short notice. 
The possession of a magnetic personality is 
not to be despised, for it is heaven-given ; it 
is the most potent element in making a " good 
mixer"; but when it is used simply to be 
"hail-fellow-well-met" with Tom, Dick, and 
Harry, it is being brought to ignoble uses. 
Some young men and young women are dis- 
criminating in their tastes, exclusive in their 
tendencies, reserved and diffident in the mat- 
ter of giving their affections ; they are among 
the joys of many a teacher's life. But to the 
average American college student, they are the 
" snobs," the socially unavailable. A whole- 
some, deep, and broad social life ought to 
have room for all kinds, tolerance for all 
sorts. 

A nother thing a dean of women must try 
to cultivate is an appreciation on the part of 
the women students for what is in good taste 
and is suitable in the way of entertainment 
and hospitality. Here and there student social 
life is apt to degenerate into an elaborate, vul- 
garly ostentatious display in which money is 
squandered, good taste offended, and no really 
vital purpose subserved. It is not, perhaps, to 



162 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

be wondered at when one reads the society 
columns of our metropolitan papers and sees 
what is evidently considered worthy of being 
chronicled. It never occurs to the uninitiated 
that there is in every city and in many a town 
a delicate, refined, cultivated, and uplifting 
social life among small groups which is not of 
the sort which editors of the social columns 
commonly know or care for, and to whose 
participants a newspaper notice would be an 
impertinence if not an effront. When a Greek- 
letter society tells you that it has to give, once 
a year at least, " a big blow-out," you can 
depend upon it that they have designated 
precisely and picturesquely the sort of social 
function which they are concocting. Most 
groups which occupy a house give once a year 
an " omnium gotherum " for the faculty ; and 
neither hosts nor guests have a good enough 
time or acquire enough better acquaintance 
to pay for the sherbet consumed. Small in- 
formal affairs where dress and refreshments are 
simple, where there is some real conversation 
or healthful dancing, would meet the situation 
far better. Dinner dances, formal luncheons, 
and huge receptions are out of place and of 



THE SOCIAL LIFE OF STUDENTS 163 

little use to college students. But the whole 
matter is one of gradual education, not only 
of the college community, but also of the 
world at large ; for college students are but 
aping what they regard as " elegant " and 
^' good form " in the social world outside the 
college walls. Until the social life of towns, 
cities, and rural communities is simplified and 
reconstructed on broader ideals, we shall con- 
tinue to see its pettiness, its vulgarity, its 
ostentation, and its lack of reality reflected 
within our colleges and universities. The point 
is that we must do what we can to inculcate 
different standards and foster different ideals 
among those young men and women who are 
to go forth into these communities as leaders 
of the social, moral, and intellectual life. The 
task looks hopeless ; but we have to believe it 
is not. 

When one considers the social life of the 
women students in the broader sense, — in 
the sense of bringing to each young woman 
a vital consciousness of her membership in the 
different social groups with which her life is 
concerned, whether that group be the family, 
the church, the school, some economic unit, 



164 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

the civic community, or the State, — there the 
dean of women has her largest and most ap- 
pealing task. To this task all the organiza- 
tions lend themselves, and in their ranks is 
the social sense in its large meaning devel- 
oped. Social responsibility is taught and fos- 
tered by training as an officer in a self-gov- 
ernment association, on its board, as house 
president, or on committees for raising loan 
funds or scholarships, or planning the voca- 
tional conference. Sel fish individualism is 
broken down and the social sense awakened 
by such work and by the experience involved 
in doing it. If in connection with some organ- 
ization, such as the Young Women's Christian 
Association, work may be undertaken under 
competent direction among young girls in the 
city who need young women as friends, or 
who are on probation because of truancy or 
some other reason, college students get a labo- 
ratory course, so to speak, which will fit in 
with their courses in social science and eco- 
nomics, to say nothing of their insight into 
problems with which they will later deal in 
their teaching or in their home communities. 
This work must have in view a clear aim, 



THE SOCIAL LIFE OF STUDENTS 165 

must be done under direction and not under 
the impulse of an ebullient enthusiasm alone, 
nor must it consume all of the student's emo- 
tion, energy, or time. A sense of proportion 
is a good thing to learn at any time if one is 
not born with it ; and college communities are 
past-masters in teaching it if they put their 
minds on it. A hmij-. the most fundamental 
thing a college does is to develop standards 
of judgment with which one may measure lit- 
erature, art, drama, music, and people ; and 
to train by these standards to see clearly what 
is essential and what is not, what has value 
and what lacks it, and out of many things 
which are worth while, to select what is most 
highly to be prized. Thus a sense of propor- 
tion will be acquired and developed, and the 
student bettered for all her life. 

Everydean of women has to confront a 
peculiarly difficult problem in the small group 
always present in any institution large or small 
. — the " unsocial students." By an " unsocial 
student " is meant one who has no realization 
of social responsibilities, has no social sense, 
and often is sublimely unconscious of the fact. 
This student takes no part in the outside ac- 



166 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

tivities of her mates, refuses invitations if they 
are personal, and ignores them if they are 
general, treads a beaten path between her 
lodgings and her classes, and prefers solitude 
at all hours. If this unsocial attitude arises 
from an abnormal shyness and bashfulness, it 
is possible to overcome it by placing such a 
student in a hall of residence or a large lodg- 
ing-house where older students may, under 
the direction of the dean of women, set about 
forming friendships with their diffident house- 
mate. If, as more often arises, poverty lies at 
the root of the trouble ; if the unsocial stu- 
dent is working for her room and board, and 
pride prevents her from entering into the com- 
munity life ; or if, by reason of outside work 
which weighs too heavily, fatigue prevents 
any interest in play- — then the solution is 
harder to find. The cooperative dormitory 
will take care of many such girls ; indeed, its 
greatest value lies in the hearty good will and 
spirit of mutual helpfulness with which the 
house ought to be permeated. The tempera- 
mentally unsocial student will be out of har- 
mony anywhere ; but the girl who is unsocial 
because of untoward circumstances can be 



THE SOCIAL LIFE OF STUDENTS 167 

taken out of herself in a house where each 
has her share of responsibility in developing 
home life and spirit among her group. An- 
other way of reaching the unsocial student is 
through the junior adviser system. The junior 
adviser should lay deliberate siege to the un- 
social girl, should ascertain her outside inter- 
ests if she has any, and divine the inner desire 
which every girl possesses for some sort of 
gayety ; with this information she should pro- 
cure for her "advisee" membership in some 
group. A junior can do far more for such a 
girl than can any administrative officer; but 
it is the business of the dean of women to 
find out who are the unsocial students and set 
the machinery in motion which will take them 
out of themselves. Through her connection 
with the employment work, with the voca- 
tional guidance and with the whole question 
of student self-support, a dean is most likely 
to come in contact with the unsocial student ; 
it is one of the problems as well as one of the 
satisfactions which that particular phase of 
her work may bring. 

One of the questions which arises more 
prominently in state universities than else- 



168 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

where is, How shall new students be assimi- 
lated into the whole student body most quietly 
and effectively, and student traditions be thus 
preserved? In the University of Wisconsin 
the percentage of new students was, in Sep- 
tember, 1913, forty-five per cent of the whole 
number enrolled. These figures mean that 
nearly one half of the whole mass is new ma- 
terial to be kneaded in as rapidly and blended 
as completely as can possibly be done. It is 
very hard to preserve continuity of policy and 
conserve the best traditions of college life 
where fifty-five per cent or a little more than 
half the students have to do that work. The 
largest single accretion will be the freshman 
class, and here the junior adviser system is of 
great assistance. The self-government associa- 
tion, with its large board, made up of leaders 
in each group, and with its manifold activities 
dealing with many phases of student life, is 
also a potent factor in solving the problem. 
If, under the auspices of this all-inclusive or- 
ganization, an organization of the freshman 
girls can be effected whereby they come to 
know one another, and to fall unconsciously 
under the influence and leadership of the 



THE SOCIAL LIFE OF STUDENTS 169 

strongest girls in their class, another aid may 
be invoked. In the University of Minnesota 
and in the University o£ Wisconsin such or- 
ganizations have proved helpful. In the Uni- 
versity of Wisconsin the freshman girls, or- 
ganized in 1912, in 1913 gave their name to 
the new freshmen and took another as sopho- 
mores, in 1914 these sophomores gave their 
name to the incoming sophomores, and took 
a new name as juniors, while the incoming 
sophomores gave their freshman name to the 
incoming class. In this way the class which 
entered in 1912 has formed each of three 
class organizations, so that now all but the 
seniors have their own society. The plan is 
too new to have been tried fully, but it is 
worth continuing. One of the grave faults in 
the large universities is the lack of class spirit 
which is manifested both among undergradu- 
ates and alumni. One has but to contrast the 
class reunions of such institutions as Harvard 
and Vassar with those of any state university 
to realize the significance of this lack of class 
spirit. Such organizations as the ones just de- 
scribed, which include all the women mem- 
bers of each class, ought to be of great value 



170 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

not only in making known to one another all 
the undergraduates who entered or are grad- 
uated in the same year, but ought to be pro- 
ductive of friendships and of loyalty which 
will bear fruit in alumni associations. Admin- 
istrative officers are impressed over and over 
again with the literal-mindedness of young 
people, of their lack of imagination, and of 
the consequent necessity with which institu- 
tions labor of making concrete, wherever it 
can be done, the symbols of loyalty and of 
high-minded cooperation. 

Another mode of assimilating into the stu- 
dent body the group of freshmen would be by 
a series of freshmen convocations. Most of 
these ought to be conducted by faculty mem- 
bers, but one at least should be under the 
auspices of the self-government association. 
Attendance should be required of every fresh- 
man, and the meeting should be addressed by 
the presidents of the more important student 
organizations and also by the dean of women. 
In this way the larger ideals of the community 
in so far as the women students are concerned 
may be emphasized. At the close of this con- 
vocation, the freshman girls' organization can 



THE SOCIAL LIFE OF STUDENTS 171 

be formed. At the other convocations both 
young men and young women will be present ; 
here large matters of student ethics and dis- 
cussion of the various aspects of college life 
may be brought out. It is of the utmost im- 
portance that students should be started in 
the right direction at the outset of their uni- 
versity career. These young men and women 
come full of enthusiasm, of eagerness, of good 
spirits, of a new sense of liberty — all of which 
should be immediately capitalized for good and 
not let run into foolish or evil courses within 
a semester. Parents do not realize their respon- 
sibility in implanting ideals and developing 
character before their children reach college 
age ; but they quite rightly hold the university 
responsible if no progress is made in moral 
as well as intellectual growth during four 
years' residence under the college roofs. Home 
and school have to work together in the years 
before college ; home and college ought to 
cooperate in moulding and developing under- 
graduates. 

One last word as to how a dean of women 
may help further in raising the standards of 
student opinion. At the University of Wis- 



172 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

cousin a student council made up of the heads 
of the women's organizations has met with the 
dean of women about six times during the 
year for conference on student affairs. When 
the members of the council report to their 
organizations the net result of such meet- 
ings, nearly all the women students have been 
reached. If there were something correspond- 
ing to chapel exercises, held regularly, with 
the main object of their existence an implant- 
ing of ideals, a student council such as has 
just been described would be unnecessary. But 
in the absence of such exercises, any other 
device becomes an object of interest and of 
experiment. 

In conclusion, one may say that the social 
life of university students needs compression, 
simplification, a different aim, and a different 
basis. It must be subordinated to the demands 
of the curriculum ; it must be raised above the 
standard of the outside world ; it should make 
better men and women. Any plan which will 
present a constructive method for subserving 
these purposes is worth trying. 



CHAPTER YII 

PKOBLEMS OF STUDENT DISCIPLINE 

The problem of student discipline is one over 
which administrative officers are more puzzled 
than over any other. It is an axiom of all dis- 
cipline, whether in the family or in the school, 
or — for that matter — of the State, that no 
legislation should be adopted which cannot be 
promptly and effectively enforced. Moreover, 
legislation of a restrictive nature must appeal 
to those whose conduct it is intended to regu- 
late as being reasonable, fair, and just. One 
of the reasons why faculty regulations are dis- 
obeyed and evaded is because students cannot 
see the necessity for such legislation, distrust 
the spirit in which the rules were laid down, 
and sometimes feel that after all such laws are 
better "honored in the breach than in the 
observance." Another reason is because many 
students come to college with a residuum of 
their old attitude toward high and preparatory 
school-teachers, — an attitude which holds that 
teachers are natural enemies, that to outwit 



174 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

and circumvent them is the thing to do, and 
that the only misfortune in disobedience and 
dishonesty is the being found out. For this 
childish attitude — and a good deal of it sur- 
vives even the freshman year in college — the 
home is primarily at fault. Self-control, obedi- 
ence, respect as well as regard for authority 
and for those who represent it, courtesy toward 
those older than one's self, a sincere contempt 
for lack of integrity in any form, — all these 
ought to be taught in the home through 
years in which parents work consciously and 
patiently to mould the character of their chil- 
dren. But the home in these days is prone to 
leave about all except physical comfort to the 
schools to take care of; and the school has 
become far more paternalistic than it used to 
be in response to the pressure put upon it from 
all sides. Yet the school can never do what 
the home at its best might accomplish. More- 
over, the school has the pupil for a maximum 
of six hours out of twenty-four, under quite 
different circumstances from those which pre- 
vail in the home. The teacher can never be 
an ideal substitute for the parent; and the 
work of both agencies is needed if college 



PROBLEMS OF STUDENT DISCIPLINE 175 

students are to bring to their four years away 
from home the equipment in character and 
standards which they may in fairness be ex- 
pected to have. But since neither the home 
nor the school does all that it might, the fresh- 
man often brings to college his immature, silly 
way of looking at regulations and rules. Every 
one who has thought about the matter feels that 
the best and most seasoned teachers are needed 
for freshmen and sophomores if they are prop- 
erly to be grounded in the fundamental work 
upon which specialized superstructures are to 
be reared. But the bearing of the question 
upon the general matter of college discipline 
is not often considered. The college or uni- 
versity must make a definite and persistent 
effort to inculcate an earnest desire to do the 
right thing, a loyalty which regards disobe- 
dience to what has been laid down as the right 
thing as an offense against the whole student 
body, and a profound conviction that faculty 
and students alike have the welfare and honor 
of the institution at heart. Unless a real cam- 
paign of education is undertaken at once, 
students begin wrong, and every administra- 
tor knows how much harder it is to head off 



176 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

a set of students who have the momentum of 
a few weeks or months of Hcense than to win 
the majority of them at the very outset to 
harmony with what the university means to do. 
The privately endowed institutions some- 
times appear to find the work of heading stu- 
dents in the right direction much less difficult 
than do many state universities. In the first 
place, the undergraduate body of the largest 
privately endowed institutions is not so large 
as that of the largest universities. The enor- 
mous graduate body, whether in professional 
or non-professional schools, is what swells the 
numbers in the aggregate in the privately en- 
dowed institution like Columbia or Harvard. 
Moreover, the privately endowed institutions 
have usually in daily chapel exercises a forum, 
if it chooses so to regard it, for letting stu- 
dents know what their alma mater expects 
of them. Some state institutions do maintain 
chapel exercises, — for instance, Ohio State 
University, the University of Minnesota, and 
Kansas Agricultural College, — and the effect 
of such exercises upon the student body must 
in the Jong run have its effect in helping de- 
termine the character of its graduates. An- 



PROBLEMS OF STUDENT DISCIPLINE 177 

other point to be noted is that the privately 
endowed institution can reserve to itself the 
right to terminate a student's relation to it at 
any time by simply stating that the conduct 
and influence of the students do not conform 
to the ideals of the institution. But in a state 
institution there are in most cases no chapel 
exercises, a huge undergraduate body, along 
with an impression that a student can be elim- 
inated only for deficient scholarship and for 
grave offenses against the student body. The 
tuition fee is small, the state university is sup- 
ported by public taxation, the student body is 
for the most part drawn from public high 
schools of all grades, and too often the feeling 
of parents and students alike is that the insti- 
tution is bound to give those who enter its 
classes what they want and exact nothing from 
them that they do not care to give. A few 
newspapers will be constantly on the lookout 
for situations of which they can make political 
capital, and an administrative officer may see 
the patient construction of years go to pieces 
in a week. There is constant criticism of the 
freedom which students in a state university 
enjoy; there is no appreciation of what it 



178 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

means quickly and strongly to check up and 
restrict conduct all along the line. Lastly^ in- 
dependence and courage are the best equip- 
ment under these circumstances for a dean of 
women ; and since a part of her work must 
be disciplinary, she cannot do without these 
qualities. But the better the institution takes 
care of its freshmen, the less will administra- 
tive officers be called upon to inflict punish- 
ment and mete out summary justice. 

How shall the university go about " bring- 
ing up " its freshmen ? First of all, by de- 
ciding whether its method of student control 
shall be self-government or by faculty control. 
The latter is the time-honored method, the 
former the new departure. Faculties are not 
united as to which is better or more expe- 
dient, and there never was a question pro- 
pounded to a group of faculty men or women 
which could more instantaneously divide that 
group into two camps. As has been said in a 
previous chapter, self-government has its limi- 
tations, and the final judgment must always 
be a faculty decision. But the principle seems 
to the writer a reasonable and just one ; and 
though faculty control is in some matters more 



PROBLEMS OF STUDENT DISCIPLINE 179 

effective and wiser, on the whole its results are 
not, for state institutions at least, either so 
large or so permanent as are those of self- 
government. The whole question is as yet a 
matter of opinion, and every person has a 
right to his own judgment about it. In any 
argument on the subject, this much must be 
taken into account : that the better class of 
high and preparatory schools are making use 
of a certain measure of self-government, and 
graduates of schools which make use of such 
a system do not take readily to faculty con- 
trol when they go to college. It may be that 
the situation is different as regards young men 
and young women ; the latter have not by 
tradition or race experience been brought to 
have what a wise woman has called " corporate 
responsibihty," and they have certainly found 
more need of a written constitution in which 
their rights and privileges in college are clearly 
defined than have men students. But it is clear 
that even self-government associations cannot 
run themselves; and faculty committees and 
student committees must from time to time 
have joint sessions if the wisest course is to 
be pursued. 



180 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

Another tiling which must be done for fresh- 
men is to give some definite instruction as to 
what the institution expects and must have in 
the matter of honest work ; that is, what will 
be demanded as independent work on the part 
of the student and what will not. The mean- 
ing and significance of plagiarism, the use and 
justice of quotation marks, the reasons for as- 
signing a paper or a thesis, the kind of work 
which maybe legitimately embodied in a group 
report and the kind which may not, the limit 
to be placed upon the kind and amount of aid 
one student may give another — all these are 
matters to be put to every single student who 
comes to college for the first time. One may 
think that parents and schools should already 
have taught all these things ; the fact remains 
that they have not. It is a situation which the 
university confronts, and not a theory. Older 
teachers are prone to take too much for granted 
in the matter of student honesty and integrity ; 
they forget that each class needs the same pre- 
cise, detailed, and elaborate instructions which 
have been given to every other class. All too 
often the administrative officer has to meet the 
indignant protest on the part of the student 



PROBLEMS OF STUDENT DISCIPLINE 181 

culprit, "Well, he ought to have told me what 
he wanted me to do/' — " he " being the pro- 
fessor who has brought up the matter. Nor is 
the fault wholly on the part of the student. In- 
structors are sometimes guilty of lack of con- 
sideration for what may properly be required 
in other courses than their own. Half a dozen 
theses are called for in one semester in the 
several courses of a student's program ; they 
are all to be in by a given time or they will 
not be accepted. " Quizzes," outside reading, 
theses, all crowd together, and the student 
rushes to put his notes into form, spends no 
thought on making the subject-matter his own, 
or assimilating any part of it, and strings to- 
gether a series of quotations without giving 
anybody else any credit for the ideas therein 
expressed. Or a student gets behind in his 
work ; under pressure he takes more help from 
another student than he ought. Problems are 
copied, laboratory results are corrected from 
another notebook, an answer is taken from 
another person's examination paper. Or the 
case may be pathological, in which event it 
is hardest to deal with in fairness and justice. 
Deans of women have all the fine distinctions 



182 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

between honest and dishonest work brought 
before them, and so they become conversant 
with the whole large question. But there is 
scarcely one who is convinced that her institu- 
tion does all it ought or might in the way of 
preventive measures. 

How shall dishonesty in university work be 
punished? Short time suspensions — that is, 
suspensions for less than a semester — are per- 
nicious; through them the student gets even 
farther behind in his work, the temptation to 
complete the semester's work by hook or crook 
is even greater than before, and a sullen anger 
over his punishment is often the only net result 
of the episode. Some institutions expel at once ; 
others suspend for a semester. No administra- 
tive of&cer who has dealt with cases over any 
length of time would dream of classifying all cul- 
prits together. The reasons for the dishonesty 
are so varied, the attitude of the students so 
multiform, the kind of offense so different, that 
no two cases are ever just alike. Each one has 
to be judged by itself, and the remedy made pro- 
portionate to the disease. But a general policy 
has first to be determined upon : Is the institu- 
tion to punish and feel that its ends are thus 



PROBLEMS OF STUDENT DISCIPLINE 183 

wholly subserved ? Or shall it undertake to edu- 
cate as well as to punish ? The committee which 
considers such cases at the University of Wis- 
consin has been trying for a year a plan whereby 
first offenses of freshmen are almost always 
punished by requiring the completion of an 
additional number of hours for graduation, by 
putting the culprit on probation with an in- 
structor (often his faculty adviser) who shall 
require reports from the student and his teach- 
ers at stated times, and by a reprimand from 
the chairman of the committee or one of the 
deans. A second offense would in almost all 
cases be punished by indefinite suspension — 
that is, by expulsion. The plan is too new as 
yet to have a final judgment passed upon it; 
but it is in harmony with the best opinion in 
the country as to treating all sorts of juvenile 
offenses. It is, at any rate, generous to the 
student, and gives him the benefit of every 
doubt as to his intentions in the past and for 
the future. 

An honor system would be the best plan if 
it were feasible. But such a system presupposes 
an overwhelming student sentiment which un- 
happily does not exist in many institutions. 



184: THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

Traditions have to be established and main- 
tained for a number of college generations be- 
fore such a system will be faultlessly operated. 
Moreover, an honor system can take no ac- 
count of the fine distinctions between case 
and case ; and must be wholly punitive. Most 
of our state universities are not yet ready for 
it. An honor system which deals only with 
upper-classmen is open to objection and argu- 
ment; but it deserves a trial where no other 
scheme is brought forward. It may develop 
the idea not only among the upper-classmen, 
but also among those freshmen and sophomores 
who are not included in its provisions. Time 
alone can tell how large an improvement such 
a compromise system may affect. 

It is worth repeating that state institutions, 
especially, with their very large and hetero- 
geneous student bodies, can take very little for 
granted as to the standards a freshman brings 
to college; they must, therefore, make definite 
provision for setting up standards all along 
the line. As one college professor has said, 
" The university ought to be concerned in 
making two blades of corn grow where one 
grew before ; but it ought to be far more con- 



PROBLEMS OF STUDENT DISCIPLINE 185 

cerned in making two ideals grow where one 
grew before." 

Just as preventive medicine is rightly de- 
manding and receiving large attention, so pre- 
ventive measures in universities ought to be 
matters of greatest concern. Professor George 
H. Palmer, of Harvard University, is but one 
of many who feel poignantly that the greatest 
need of state universities is for something cor- 
responding to the old chapel exercises, where 
moral and religious ideals may be fostered. 
Many students come to college with conserva- 
tive theological concepts stored up in their 
minds ; these may not weather the storm which 
accompanies the awakening in a philosophy 
course. Others come with no definite religious 
ideas of any sort; they likewise run amuck 
after philosophy and science have aroused 
them. Still others are disturbed, but sink back 
into lethargy. The consequence is that too 
many college graduates are going out into the 
world with no interest in religion or religious 
things; they have a creed of social service as 
they call it, but whether or not there is enough 
vitality or spirituality in it to weather a few 
years of Sturm und Drang is an open ques- 



186 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

tion. One has but to see the students crowd 
in to hear a man like Dr. Lyman Abbott, whom 
they regard as an expert on religion (if one 
may use the phrase), see them fill his office 
hours to overflowing, and learn of the vital 
questions they ask him, to be convinced that 
Sabatier was right when he said that " man is 
incurably religious." For theology the average 
student has little regard; for the fundamental 
truths of religion he cares enormously. The 
whole life of a university could and should be 
uplifted and spiritualized by definite services, 
held at specified times in specified places, for 
which all other engagements should stand aside. 
The argument is brought up in any discussion 
of the question that that sort of thing cannot 
be done formally, that each instructor must 
do his part in his classroom. That is all very 
well in theory ; many persons know how few in- 
structors are supremely fitted either by nature, 
temperament, or education to do such work. 
The point is that every student ought to get 
certain fundamental truths in the same way, 
and upon that foundation let every instructor 
labor to complete the good work. In their 
jealous fear of sectarianism, state universities 



PROBLEMS OF STUDENT DISCIPLINE 187 

have stricken out what has been the vital, 
compelling force of centuries of student life 
— religion in its broad and deep meaning. 
They are to-day paying the price. 

In the whole matter of student discipline 
the cooperation of parents ought to be a thing 
upon which we could count. But too often 
warning letters to parents bring forth no re- 
sponse ; a few letters bring forth anathema for 
the writer, and charges of partiality, injustice, 
and unfairness ; and still fewer offer any aid 
which may be desired. Parents sometimes de- 
press a dean of women by assuming that she 
holds her position solely for her own glorifi- 
cation, that she is vindictive and small-minded, 
and that any decision she makes is unwise, 
unfair, and ought to be overruled. Parents 
wish to preserve their self-love, and to make 
a child stand forth a paragon in their home 
community. " But if she goes home now, the 
whole town will know ; can't she wait until 
the end of the semester ? Then we can make 
an excuse." Yet the university community 
may already know of the offense, and may 
have condemned it. Students almost without 
exception, if given the choice between with- 



188 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

drawing from the university and going home, 
and facing a judiciary committee of a self- 
government association, will choose the for- 
mer. They cannot stand the condemnation 
and sentence of their peers. 

In all matters of student discipline, it may 
be set forth as a general proposition that 
whatever breaks down the standards of the 
classroom, as does dishonesty in university 
work, belongs to the realm of faculty regula- 
tion unless an honor system is in effective 
operation. Whatever infractions there are of 
rules made by self-government associations 
shall be dealt with in the first instance by the 
body which made them. Whatever infractions 
there are of rules made by the faculty shall be 
in the first instance dealt with by a faculty 
committee. Such a combination of faculty con- 
trol and student self-control probably best 
meets present-day conditions. In that case the 
dean of women must be ex officio a member of 
faculty committees which deal with discipline ; 
she must be closely in touch with the com- 
mittee of the self-government associations 
whose province is the regulation of student 
conduct. Cases will usually be brought to 



PROBLEMS OF STUDENT DISCIPLINE 189 

the dean of women before they are reported 
elsewhere; she has to decide in what realm 
the offense has occurred, and refer it to the 
proper body for investigation and decision.^ 
If the case is one of mere rumor, she fre- 
quently has to establish the facts and through 
her investigation determine how it shall be 
disposed of. Her judgment and acumen are 
called upon again and again ; and upon what 
students come to feel is her impartiality, jus- 
tice, and right-mindedness in dealing with 
student discipline there often comes to depend 
the whole success of her work. Her position 
is greatly complicated by the fact that she 
holds punitive powers. The young women 
students always hold in awe and view with 
reserve an administrative officer who is also 
concerned with student discipline. But that is 
a limitation upon the position which cannot be 
avoided. If one is unwilling to pay the price, 
one should never accept the place. Her work, 
as well as that of other administrative officers, 
must in matters of discipline be punitive ; but 
it should also be ultimately constructive. 

^ For the judicial committee of the Self-Government As- 
sociation of the University of Wisconsin, see Appendix A, 
under that heading. 



CHAPTEK VIII 

THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF STUDENTS 

If the position of a dean of women is to be 
of intellectual significance — that is, if a part 
of her fitness as a candidate is to be deter- 
mined on the basis of the intellectual training 
and power of which she may be possessed ; if 
she is to have professorial rank and offer 
courses of such quality as are offered by her 
colleagues ; if, by virtue of her training, her 
ability, and her position, she is to be the leader 
in developing the intellectual life of the women 
students, — then she must properly diagnose 
the present condition of affairs and be ready 
to offer remedies, both immediate and far- 
reaching. A dean of women ought to be, as 
has been said earlier, so far as possible an 
expert on women's education in a coedu- 
cational institution. She ought to see what 
are the limitations under which the women 
students labor, how far they are permanent, 
and how far they can be lessened or removed. 
She ought to see the possibilities of the insti- 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF STUDENTS 191 

tution and of the students themselves, how 
rapidly and to what point they may be devel- 
oped, and how that development may be 
brought about. She ought to know what is 
being done for and by the students in other 
colleges and universities, and decide how far 
the achievements of other institutions can be 
duplicated in her own. If she has been a mem- 
ber of a faculty of a women's college, if she 
has been a student or a teacher in a coeduca- 
tional institution, if she has also been identi- 
fied in some way with the af&liated women's 
college, she brings an important experience to 
her administrative office. If she has "arrived" 
in her profession as a teacher, by virtue of 
excellence in the actual work of teaching and 
of directing students in research, as well as 
by having put forth a piece of work which has 
won the respect of her colleagues, she is more 
nearly ready to take this place of intellectual 
leadership which it is important for the women 
students and for the institution that she as- 
sume. As was said in the opening chapter, no 
glorified chaperon is able to fulfill this func- 
tion. An institution must in the first place 
decide whether it will limit the position and 



192 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

provide merely a social leader, or raise the 
office to one of dignity and responsibility, and 
set about finding a candidate whose leader- 
ship will be intellectual, social (in the larger 
sense), moral, and spiritual. That it will be 
impossible to get an ideal person who com- 
bines all the qualities desired goes without 
saying ; but an institution may as well require 
all the equipment possible and eliminate can- 
didates who fall below the least one may de- 
mand rather than to ask but a small stock in 
trade and have to take even less. 

It will be evident to a dean of women who 
has had experience of the segregated women's 
college, the affiliated women's college, and the 
coeducational institution, that the segregated 
women's college has certain advantages over 
the other two in the matter of the intellectual 
development of its graduates. In the first 
place, since none of these segregated colleges 
is state-supported, entrance requirements may 
be set at will, and the manner in which these 
requirements shall be met is likewise deter- 
mined by each institution for itself. As a con- 
sequence, a weeding-out process may be car- 
ried on, whereby only the better equipped 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF STUDENTS 193 

graduates of the best high and preparatory 
schools can enter at all. There is no compul- 
sion upon the women's college to take any 
student whom it does not wish to educate, nor 
to retain those who do not take the work of- 
fered in a serious and thorough-going fashion. 
Once inside the college, high standards can be 
maintained, the pace set high or low as the 
powers that rule may determine. Owing to 
the isolated character of most of these col- 
leges, there is ordinarily a closer relation be- 
tween students and instructors than obtains 
elsewhere, though there are exceptions in all 
cases. Where, as is the case in Wellesley Col- 
lege, an instructor sits at dinner with a table- 
ful of students, the conversation is ordinarily 
on a higher level than most table talk among 
students sitting alone. Those young women 
who sat at dinner for a year at a time with 
Miss Sophie Jewett will never forget their 
high privilege. It is undeniably stupid to ex- 
pect ten young women aged twenty-one or less 
to develop any broad or deep intellectual life 
among themselves unless an impetus comes 
from somewhere outside of the immediate 
group. Where women of world-wide reputa- 



194 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

tion throw open their houses or their rooms 
once a week for their pupils to come for tea 
and talk, there is sure to be something stimu- 
lating about it for more than one young girl. 
The best students of the women's college may 
be called ^^ precieuses " ; but at least their 
minds have been aroused and stimulated, and 
rarely can they sink back permanently into 
lethargy. 

Many young women in coeducational insti- 
tutions would develop just as much power 
were their life more simple and their standards 
higher. In the state university the student 
body will always at the outset be more un- 
evenly prepared and the amount required for 
entrance will be less than in the best privately 
endowed colleges. This situation cannot be 
avoided because of the relation which the uni- 
versity bears to the state public school sys- 
tem ; it is the head, the culmination of that 
system, and its standards can never be set too 
far ahead of those schools which are immedi- 
ately below it in rank. It is necessary, there- 
fore, to keep the freshman work in close 
touch with the fourth year of the average high 
school in the State. Those students who come 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF STUDENTS 195 

from the best high schools will probably find 
the work easier than they should and may go 
far too much into outside activities because 
they have an abundance of spare time on their 
hands. The number of freshmen who can be 
dropped at the end of the first semester is less 
than in the privately endowed institution, be- 
cause the work of bringing up the average of 
the class is not yet completed. It is only fair 
to give a whole year to the student who is 
earnest, hard-working, but poorly prepared, 
because he comes from an ill-equipped high 
school with too small a force of teachers ; — 
provided his background furnishes an eager- 
ness for learning, though perhaps no traditions 
of scholarship. Just because it is necessary to 
be lenient and to give students the benefit of 
the doubt, a number are retained who have no 
serious purpose, who pull down the average of 
the classes into which they are put, and are in 
all ways demoralizing to the intellectual side 
of the work. Most of this " supercargo " can 
be detected and weeded out at the end of the 
freshman year if the pruning knife is used with 
equal vigor by every instructor. But once in 
a while a professor in a state university will 



196 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

admit under pressure that his standards settle 
a little year by year, and that as time has gone 
on he has given more " B's " and more " C's/' 
and fewer " D's," not because the quality of his 
classes has improved, but because he is making 
his course easier, and conditioning a smaller 
number of students. Such a situation does not 
make for a higher type of intellectual life on 
the part of an institution or its graduates. 

Moreover, the freshmen in a large institu- 
tion see but little of those who represent 
the intellectual standards of the community. 
Halls of residence are few or none ; graduate 
students have usually to be excluded from 
them because they can fend for themselves in 
lodgings more easily than can freshmen ; in- 
structors live in their own homes, in a univer- 
sity club, or in lodgings where they can have 
the quiet necessary for their own work ; and 
students are not given to calling upon their 
teachers even in response to a personal invita- 
tion. More than all, the social life among the 
students themselves is so alluring, there are so 
many new young men or young women to meet, 
that the call of these "extra-curricular activi- 
ties " is far louder, more insistent, and more 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF STUDENTS 197 

alluring than is that of older people whose 
urbane manners are a source of embarrassment 
to many an awkward freshman. It is no won- 
der that some young men and young women 
regard the classroom work as the price one has 
to pay for being able to stay in so diverting 
a place as a college town ; and it is human na- 
ture to pay as little legal tender as possible 
and get as much fun as one may. Where there 
are no convocations, no chapel, no vivid pre- 
sentations by instructors to show why the 
university exists ; no definite statement of what 
one's alma mater has a right to expect of one 
and what she will exact ; where there is no 
effort made to inculcate standards where there 
are none, or to raise ideals already existent ; 
where " the sideshows are allowed to distract 
all attention from the main circus " ; — there 
one must pay the price in the indifferent edu- 
cation of students whose ability is below me- 
diocrity. 

To freshman girls living in halls of resi- 
dence the obligation of mistresses of those 
halls is obvious. These assistants to the dean 
of women must themselves be women of intel- 
lectual ability, training, and interests, who will 



198 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

assume leadership and direction among their 
groups, who will encourage good work and 
discourage anything else, and who will coop- 
erate at every turn with the instructors. If in 
the Greek-letter society houses the house- 
mother is an instructor or an older graduate 
student, the same good work can be carried 
on among these smaller groups. For the young 
women in lodgings the dean of women and her 
personal assistant must be responsible. 

Above the freshman year the university 
ought to push up standards to the point where 
the average student must work to keep up. 
For the better students more outside reading 
and a higher standard of written work should 
be required in order to absorb his best interest 
and also to give him the training and disci- 
pline he needs. There is sometimes too little 
distinction made on the part of the teachers 
between advanced, semi-advanced, and ele- 
mentary courses. The elementary course, in- 
tended primarily for freshmen and sophomores, 
has little prerequisite, and may or may not 
presuppose after-specialization. The semi-ad- 
vanced course presupposes preparation by ele- 
mentary courses, more experience in handling 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF STUDENTS 199 

material, and a certain amount of specializa- 
tion. Advanced courses should presuppose 
both elementary and semi-advanced courses 
with the power to attack new problems which 
the prerequisites should have developed. 

In some institutions there is too little dif- 
ference between junior and senior courses; yet 
if a diploma is to be the symbol it ought to be, 
the fourth year ought to demand a student's 
best powers and a large measure of his time. 
The setting a high standard for work, both in 
character and in quantity, and marking results 
with a high degree of discrimination and judg- 
ment, is the only way to keep extra-curricular 
activities in their proper place, with the right 
perspective and in a justifiable proportion as 
regards the main business of the student. 
Faculties as well as students have to be edu- 
cated in this matter. No amount of pessimism 
over the situation or blame laid upon adminis- 
trators is going to better conditions ; the root 
of the difficulty lies deep, and everybody's 
shoulder has to be put to the wheel before 
conditions are materially improved. 

There are various aids to scholarship in 
which administrative officers are interested. 



200 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

The times call for all the artifieal aids that 
can be devised. Sophomore honors, awarded 
sparingly for excellence during the first two 
years, and awarded publicly with a view to 
impressing the student body with the fact 
that the university regards as worthy of a spe- 
cial place any academic distinction, are incen- 
tives of proved worth. Prizes in special de- 
partments for the best translation, the best 
original poem or story, the best thesis, the 
best bit of scientific research in a seminar 
course — such recognitions of merit are coveted 
by students and held in high esteem by par- 
ents, whose cooperation we all so earnestly 
desire. The plan of giving degrees with dis- 
tinction is meeting with success in some insti- 
tutions ; — that is, the plan by which students 
select their major at the end of their freshman 
year, and either at the beginning of their 
sophomore or their junior year (both plans 
are feasible) present a program for the remain- 
der of their college course which shall embrace 
work of especial difficulty and of unusual 
breadth, upon which if they are successful, 
they will be asked to pass special examinations 
oral or written at the end of their senior year. 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF STUDENTS 201 

If they show themselves of sufficient caliber, 
they then receive a " degree with distinction." 
A Phi Beta Kappa key is the sign of general 
excellence in scholarship along all the lines 
pursued, and a mark of future promise ; the 
" degree with distinction " is somewhat differ- 
ent, as can readily be seen. A student might 
have either or both ; but in any event, both 
kinds of incentive are valuable. Scholarships 
awarded for high standings if a student is 
needy are also admirable. In all these aids 
committee action is necessary in setting con- 
ditions for their attainment and in making the 
final awards ; upon such committees the dean 
of women should sit. If she knows her young 
women thoroughly her advice will be invalu- 
able. 

Outside of the classroom, its work, and its 
rewards, there lies another field of intellectual 
endeavor which has great possibilities and is 
as yet undeveloped. I refer to college literary 
societies. Although these societies grew up 
outside of the classroom, they were, neverthe- 
less, in a real way an adjunct to the lecture 
and the recitation. In these little gatherings 
many a public speaker made his first bashful 



202 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

appearance and uttered his first stumbling 
speech, many a politician formed his first 
tenets of political and ethical faith, and many 
a statesman laid the foundation for his future 
toleration of and patience with divergent 
views. To-day, when social service is the magic 
word for organizations, these little literary 
societies are less attractive to the average stu- 
dent than they were, and their roll is small as 
compared with that of the athletic association 
or the league for social service. Yet the value 
of these organizations is great, and the train- 
ing they afford is as much worth while as ever 
it was. The debates, papers, reviews, and rec- 
itations may form a most profitable adjunct 
to the classroom work, and vivify many an 
arid lecture ! The work must, however, be 
undertaken in a serious spirit; if the labor 
means the sacrifice of other interests, then one 
must be willing to make these concessions, for 
one of the best things one learns in college is 
the evaluation of what is offered for one's 
consumption. Programs that are made out in 
the summer afford an opportunity to measure 
one's growth, for the paper prepared in Au- 
gust is rarely what would be written the fol- 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF STUDENTS 203 

lowing May, so fast do the minds of college 
students grow. If, moreover, the programs 
have some continuity throughout the year, 
their value is greatly enhanced. With the 
small leisure left in the busy student life, these 
activities afford a great opportunity for keep- 
ing touch with current events and current 
literature. The members of the literary soci- 
eties should be the best-read and best-informed 
students. 

Here, too, may be real apprenticeship in 
writing and speaking. Women are coming 
more and more to be drawn upon for various 
kinds of public work, — on boards, on com- 
mittees, in organizations, — and they must 
there defend their old views, construct new 
ones, and add their viewpoint to the sum total 
of discussion. Apprenticeship for their work 
should if possible be found in the university, 
and it is developed especially in advanced 
courses. To these courses the training of the 
literary society may well be added. 

There is no ground for enduring friendship 
more fruitful than that of congenial intellec- 
tual tastes. It is Robert Louis Stevenson, I 
believe, who says that there is nothing in the 



204 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

world so sure of making a thoroughgoing 
friendship as a similar taste in jokes ! Cer- 
tainly to be able to look at life from the 
same angle, to measure its humors by the same 
standard, to bear its sorrows with the same 
discipline — all these make for congeniality. 
And literary societies do aid this congeniality 
by providing companionship on a quite dif- 
ferent basis from that of any other college 
activity. It was significant of the attitude of 
women who came to the University of Wis- 
consin early in the sixties, that they should 
not only share the classroom facilities with 
the men, but that they should determine to 
found organizations for themselves similar to 
those already in existence. The Castalia Liter- 
ary Society was founded in 1864 to give to 
the women the same advantages in debate and 
public speaking which their brothers enjoyed. 
The society has had a continuous existence 
from that time to this, endeavoring as it may 
to foster intellectual life among its members, 
and cementing friendships which have been 
lifelong: in their endurance. 

College magazines are valuable aids to the 
classroom work if their standard is high and 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF STUDENTS 205 

their purpose is good. There should be at 
least one faculty adviser on the board of each 
publication, for students are not to be trusted 
implicitly in matters of delicacy, fine taste, 
and literary discrimination. College fun is apt 
to degenerate into horse-play, to deal in per- 
sonalities, and to perpetuate the immature 
standards of the high-school paper. In a lit- 
erary magazine there should be stories, poems, 
essays, editorials, and book reviews. Work 
done in the classroom may well be recom- 
mended by instructors to the attention of the 
board which makes up the magazine. If noth- 
ing worthy of publication is sent in, then the 
magazine would better be omitted till the 
right sort of material can be obtained. Stu- 
dents like to see their work published ; other 
students are interested in seeing what their 
mates can do. But too often the college mag- 
azine is so poor that even students will not 
read it; it may well at that point pass into 
oblivion. Many colleges maintain a '' funny 
paper " ; once in a while a number will be 
really worth putting out. But even in the 
world of real journalism it is not possible to 
be really amusing every week, and a monthly 



206 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 



funny paper " in a college cannot be main- 
tained at a uniformly clean, amusing, high 
standard; where it falls below in taste and in 
quality, a faculty adviser ought to have au- 
thority to prevent its publication. 

A college daily paper should be a record of 
daily events, a bulletin of university appoint- 
ments and outside activities, and in its edi- 
torials give fair, trenchant criticism of univer- 
sity affairs whether student or faculty, as well 
as set before students their obligations and 
duties as regards the university in all its rami- 
fications. Its columns ought to be open alike 
to faculty and students, so that in signed 
editorials and in open letters there might be 
criticism and current opinion set forth in a 
spirited fashion. Here again there should be 
a faculty adviser, who knows his business and 
theirs, working with students. If it seems 
wise to put into such a daily paper a resume 
of events in the world outside for those stu- 
dents who cannot take two papers and must 
get all they can from one, then the news so 
incorporated should be carefully credited to 
its source, be sifted so as to be of uniformly 
good standard, and be a source of informa- 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF STUDENTS 207 

tion and not of degradation to a college com- 
munity. Too often a daily paper edited by 
college students is filled up with news "lifted" 
from a local yellow journal^ and a college offi- 
cer feels he cannot send a marked copy to a 
friend because of the reflections which may 
be cast upon the institution which permits 
such a sheet to go out with its name and 
sanction upon it. Better no college daily 
than one which has a taint of yellow journal- 
ism upon it. If every university had its own 
press, the printing and often the composition 
of college magazines and papers could be bet- 
ter done and better reg^ulated. While state 
printing is a coveted plum, the state univer- 
sity will probably be hampered in all its work 
of publication by the lack of such apparatus. 
College magazines and papers ought to af- 
ford all sorts of valuable training for students ; 
there should be a laboratory for more than one 
class, and their output should be uplifting for 
both men and women students. Too often the 
young women are neither on the editorial 
board nor among the contributors to these en- 
terprises. The reason for this condition is prob- 
ably partly because of lack of interest and partly 



208 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

because here, as in many other phases of their 
university life, they let the men assume the 
leadership and do the work. In women's col- 
leges all these things are done by the women 
students because otherwise they would not be 
done at all ; it is lack of interest and of initia- 
tive which prevents their sisters in coeduca- 
tional institutions from doing the same things. 
When the young women in the state univer- 
sity take over and edit one number a year of 
each college magazine and one day's edition of 
the college paper, they consider they have done 
the whole duty of woman; and even here in- 
stead of setting a higher standard of work than 
the publication ordinarily has and showing what 
they consider to be the ideals which should pre- 
vail, they usually make a cheap copy of what 
their brothers do, with poor proof-reading and 
poorer jokes. This is a severe arraignment, but 
it is unfortunately a true one. 

What part do the dean of women and her 
assistants play in setting and maintaining stand- 
ards in the intellectual life of the students? 
One of the most obvious ways is by member- 
ship on committees which work with students 
who are interested and taking an active part in 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF STUDENTS 209 

the debating and literary societies, of college 
magazines and papers, and in presenting plays 
and musical affairs. Faculty committees must 
work for hours with student committees if the 
education of students in these matters is to be 
effected. Besides committee work, there should 
be set clearly and fearlessly before the women 
students their faults and limitations as well as 
their virtues and achievements. Young women 
often have what one may call " docile minds " ; 
they accept a lecturer's point of view without 
question or argument, they read and accept 
an author's conclusions without critical analy- 
sis, they do the reading and writing assigned, 
and in an examination they give back to an in- 
structor in admirable form what has been given 
in lecture and conference. But there is no re- 
action upon the various topics, there is no ad- 
ditional comment, no differing in opinion from 
the accepted point of view. A docile-minded 
person may become a student of real ability; 
but the usual result is that such pupils do not 
use their minds up to anything like their real 
capacity. For this type of mind the lecture 
system is the worst possible ; since by that 
method the student may be absolutely passive, 



210 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

taking notes in a mechanical manner, reading 
along the same lines as the lecture with a pre- 
conceived point of view, " cramming " for an 
examination by sheer act of memory. The oral 
quiz helps; but until faculties can be large 
enough to make possible teaching and confer- 
ence in groups small enough to be effectively 
trained and disciplined, the docile minds will 
be in the majority even in senior classes. 
The lecture system under proper restrictions 
can be used for upper-class men and women, 
but unless it is accompanied by a number of 
quizzes, small group discussions, and individ- 
ual conferences, it fails to meet the require- 
ments of freshmen and sophomore education. 
Young women especially need to be roused 
to use their brains and, as Professor Lucy 
Salmon urges, " to enjoy their minds." But no 
group of young women will listen to trench- 
ant criticism of their method of work except 
from a person who has accomplished some- 
thing worth while along intellectual lines; a 
dean of women who would present to young 
women the standards they must attain must 
herself be a teacher and an investigator as well 
as an administrator. She must, moreover, have 



THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF STUDENTS 211 

some opportunity to present her point of view 
again and again ; an after-dinner speech at a 
senior banquet, an annual toast at a luncheon 
or a dinner given by some organization, an ar- 
ticle now and then in a college periodical, is 
inadequate for such a purpose. Here is again 
shown up vividly and unequivocally the need 
for something that resembles a chapel exercise, 
where day after day, month after month, and 
year after year the whole question of what 
university-bred women can and must achieve 
shall be set forth for all to hear and to con- 
sider. We criticize the low standards which 
everywhere prevail, but we make no definite 
plan to raise them by a slow but steady, infi- 
nitely patient, and absolutely unswerving proc- 
ess. Yet the reasons for existence of the state 
university is the fostering of high standards 
especially of an intellectual kind. The trouble 
is that we have not the courage of our convic- 
tions ; we diagnose the trouble, but we leave 
the matter of a drastic remedy to be decided 
upon and to be applied later. No one adminis- 
trative of&cer can work single-handed ; the 
whole machinery of the whole institution must 
be brought into play for the accomplishment 



212 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

of the great purpose of uplifting and enliv- 
ening the intellectual life of the university till 
it shall illumine not only those who are within 
its wallsj but all who look to it for inspiration 
even from a remote horizon. 



CHAPTER IX 

CONCLUSION 

The dean of women, her work, and her prob- 
lems have been set forth in the preceding chap- 
ters. Her work has been conceived as threefold 
in character — administrative, academic, and 
social. Her problems have been presented as 
of two sorts — general problems of university 
life in which she has a concern, and special 
problems incidental to the life of the young 
women students. After such an analysis there 
may still come the question, "How may a 
woman prepare herself to be a dean of women ? " 
The answer is not easy; yet there are certain 
definite suggestions which have emerged out 
of this whole discussion. 

On the intellectual side it is evident that an 
advanced degree is a necessity. We have in 
the United States only one way of estimating 
certain scholastic attainments, and that is by 
the possession of a degree of Doctor of Phi- 
losophy granted by an institution of acknowl- 
edged standing. Men find promotion beyond 



214 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

the rank of assistant professor very difficult 
unless they have this degree; women, who 
have to prove their ability time after time, find 
promotion with this degree difficult, and with- 
out it impossible. Furthermore, the possession 
of a doctor's degree must be followed by teach- 
ing which shall be of unusual excellence, and 
by published contributions to the sum total of 
human knowledge. In other words, a woman 
who expects to be a dean of women has to prove 
herself worthy to be a member of a college 
or university faculty, by actual achievement 
in teaching and writing, before she can hope 
to assume a place of dignity and importance 
as an administrator. So far as the particular 
field of her teaching and writing are concerned, 
that is unimportant. If she be the right sort of 
woman, she can make any field seem interest- 
ing and important. History, economics, social 
science, political science, with their vivid hu- 
man interest, are obviously good subjects; but 
science of any kind, home economics, languages 
— any one of these fields is suitable. The vital 
thing is to get the intellectual training and a 
point of view. What one is striving for is 
power and cultivation and breadth of view 



CONCLUSION 215 

rather than any precise information for its 
own sake. 

On the administrative side the power of swift 
judgment, a wide knowledge of college and 
university problems, experience in some sort 
of administration (whether in or out of college), 
certain definite opinions which one is prepared 
to defend with courage and persistence, an 
open-mindedness on many matters — these are 
the most important factors in making a suc- 
cess of one's work. Of certain temperamental 
qualities we shall speak later. There are every 
day questions put to a dean of women which 
require swift judgment — the sort of decision 
which must grow out of wide experience, the 
action of an analytical mind which will at 
once classify the individual case as belonging 
to a certain large category. Following these 
judgments must come courage to stand by a 
decision wisely made. There are also questions 
arising every day which concern other prov- 
inces besides her own ; she must know what 
is in her field and what is not, what is hers 
to decide at once and absolutely, and what 
must be considered in conjunction with other 
people. But only by actual experience can 



216 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

she come to administrative work of a large 
sort. 

On the social side a dean of women should 
have had wide social experience, both in the 
narrow and in the broad sense of that adjec- 
tive. She should have known many kinds of 
people and many kinds of human problems — 
not in an academic fashion, but out of experi- 
ence of life. She must have run a wide gamut 
of joy and of sorrow; for almost as much as a 
physician will she have to hear stories involv- 
ing long years of anguish, mental, physical, 
and spiritual. No young woman just out of 
college can take up the work as it should be 
done any more than could a college instructor 
who has lived like a cloistered nun. The more 
human relationships a woman has had, the 
better the experience she brings to her prob- 
lems. She needs the specialized knowledge 
which work in the social settlement brings; 
for the student bodies, especially of our state 
universities, present many "first generation" 
problems, which need for their solution wide 
sympathy for many races in every walk of life. 
A dean of women needs also large experience 
in dealing with young women ; if she has taught 



CONCLUSION 217 

in public schools as well as in colleges, she 
will be better equipped in that way. On the 
social side, in the narrower sense, she should 
have background and traditions, together with 
experience, which will make her at ease and 
acceptable anywhere. Young women are very 
sensitive to any lack on the part of their leader; 
they like to be proud of her when she appears 
in public, and they take a personal interest in 
her dress and her manners. 

So many temperamental qualities are desir- 
able that it is plain only an archangel could 
possess them all. Tact, patience, courage, alert- 
ness, good temper, unfailing honesty, open- 
mindedness, power of adaptability, willingness 
to compromise, tolerance, self-control — these 
are almost prerequisites. Where one is dealing 
with boards of trustees, university presidents, 
deans of various colleges, faculties made up of 
all kinds of men and women, students of both 
sexes, landladies of every description, parents 
from every walk in life, it is evident that a 
wide range of qualities must be called into play. 
Physical strength, good health, and a set of 
fine but wiry nerves are indispensable, for a 
dean of women never has time to be ill or tired. 



218 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

It is evident that no woman is fitted, by 
these standards, to be a dean of women. But 
any ideal which is worth conserving is always 
far beyond human attainment, and the ideal 
dean of women has been presented, not because 
any dean of women has anywhere or in any 
place approached the desired standard, but be- 
cause so many of us have expected too little of 
ourselves. In any conference of deans of women, 
where the different members are telling what 
they or their institutions are doing, the ques- 
tion arises in one's mind, " How many are ac- 
tually doing what they think they are doing?" 
So also one might ask, " How many deans of 
women are what they think they are ? " And 
it is to provide a measure far beyond any of 
us to approach that the preceding pages have 
been written. 

It is evident, too, that no one person can 
do what a large university has a right to ex- 
pect of the dean of women. No matter what 
other assistants she has, the institution must 
give her a secretary, and if the work necessi- 
tates it, a stenographer also. The secretary 
can do much of the routine work, especially 
in keeping up card catalogues, in assigning 



CONCLUSION 219 

rooms in halls of residence, in caring for the 
calendar of dates in the women's building, in 
classifying the business to be presented to the 
dean and to each of her assistants, in sorting 
out the mail and answering certain portions 
of it, and in taking charge of the office dur- 
ing vacation. It is a bad piece of economy to 
employ a high-priced dean and so limit her 
clerical assistance as to compel her to spend 
hours and weeks in doing what could be paid 
for at the rate of sixty dollars per month. 
She must be left free for the thought and time 
which must be spent upon larger problems. 
A secretary is absolutely necessary to a dean 
of women who is doing a large work in a large 
way. This secretary ought, if possible, to be 
a college graduate, with secretarial training ; 
but she must know stenography or stenotyp- 
ing, typewriting, simple bookkeeping, and 
the general routine of office work. She will 
have to be courteous, firm, tactful, not offi- 
cious ; she must be willing to do anything 
asked of her, but not assume knowledge of 
and power to decide questions which are not 
within her province. She would usually begin 
her work for about sixty dollars per month ; 



220 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

if she were a college graduate she would, per- 
haps, be given seventy-five dollars at first. 
Her salary should be advanced as she becomes 
more experienced, the limit being determined 
by her ultimate value to the institution. If 
the secretary does all which, if she be capable, 
she may find to do, it is probable that an ad- 
ditional stenographer will also be required in 
a large office. Here, again, it is easy to be 
" penny- wise, pound foolish," and take up for 
office work time which should be spent on 
larger problems. Deans of the various colleges 
in a university are generally provided with 
well-paid, competent secretaries long before a 
dean of women gets more than a half-time 
stenographer. This is partly because her work 
has been so largely personal and so little or- 
ganized, so undefined and haphazard, that it 
seemed unnecessary to add to her budget the 
item of a highly paid secretary. 

We have spoken of the equipment and 
preparation of a dean of women ; of the office 
force she should have; of the assistants in 
halls of residence which she must be able to 
call upon. What is she expected to do with 
this equipment? We considered in the open- 



CONCLUSION 221 

ing chapter the underlying principles of her 
work. With this equipment she is expected 
to embody these principles in concrete form. 
That concrete form is to be manifested in the 
character and aims of the young women who 
go forth from the institution which graduates 
them to do their share in the world's work. 
What shall we expect of these young women 
if they are to represent the finest type of wom- 
anhood ? They must be first of all self -con- 
trolled. It is unnecessary to dwell upon the 
fundamental importance of this side of a wom- 
an's development. No matter what may be 
her human relationships, what her work in the 
world, what her social position may be, she 
must have herself so well in hand that no 
wave of hysteria can sweep her off her feet, 
no stress of circumstances break down her re- 
serve. Mental and physical self-control almost 
invariably go together, and both are essential 
to the best ultimate development of the col- 
lege-bred woman. 

Another characteristic of the educated 
woman should be high-mindedness, both with 
reference to people, to art, to literature, to 
drama, and to society. She must have selec- 



222 THE DEAJSI OF WOMEN 

tive power based upon her training, have her 
standards well enough defined to make them 
a means of discrimination, and have power to 
weed out unessentials and conserve essentials 
in every phase of human life and endeavor. 
She must be truthful, honest, straightforward. 
She must be tolerant of another person's point 
of view, glad to utilize what is worth while 
regardless of its source, patient in setting forth 
her own ideas before people who are not likely 
to be influenced by them. It is very hard for 
young women just out of college to be sym- 
pathetic with the point of view of women of 
another generation with whom they must work 
on boards and committees of all kinds. Youth 
is ruthless and intolerant and impatient ; it is 
so sure of itself that it brooks but little re* 
straint. The French adage is all too true — - 
'' Si jeunesse savait, si vieillesse pouvait. . . ." 
But young women who have been trained to 
deal with other young women on self-govern- 
ment association, athletic, Christian Associa- 
tion, and other, boards and committees, espec- 
ially if these groups of leaders have been 
constantly meeting with faculty committees, 
ought to, and for the most part will, acquire 



CONCLUSION 223 

these traits of character which are so essential 
in any large sphere of life ; they are equally 
vital to the woman who marries and becomes 
a mother, and to the unmarried woman who 
earns her own living. The university prepares 
women for whatever place they are to occupy 
in the world, giving them an equipment which 
will form the basis for any future development 
which life may claim from them. Its aim is 
neither to fit especially and exclusively for 
marriage, nor for an independent career ; it 
fits out the best type of womanhood, let its 
place be where it may. 

The university should also send out young 
women better equipped physically than they 
were when they entered college. For this 
reason there is maintained corrective work 
along orthopaedic and similar lines, in connec- 
tion with the work of physical education. 
There is also where the university is ideally 
equipped, a clinical department where physical 
examinations are made at least once a year, 
and where diagnoses may be conducted when 
any acute symptoms arise. Many students 
come from small towns or rural districts, where 
physicians are not well-trained nor abreast of 



224 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

the times; or their families may have been 
too frugal and thrifty to call in a doctor save 
in cases of acute illness. When such young 
women come to college they are often for the 
first time in their lives given a thorough ex- 
amination, and their program adjusted in ac- 
cord with its results. If the work of the 
physical education department is carried on as 
it should be, these diagnoses and recommenda- 
tions will form the guiding principles upon 
which the physical training of the four college 
years will be conducted. By careful selection 
of teams for the various sports, by the cor- 
rective work, and by the regular gymnasium 
work, the whole body of young women stu- 
dents ought to be made more fit to carry on 
not only their college course, but also their 
work after their graduation. One of the most 
valuable lessons to be taught is the ability and 
willingness to recognize one's physical limita- 
tions, and so order one's life as to be un- 
hampered by them. Eobert Louis Stevenson's 
conviction, that " to renounce and not be em- 
bittered was part of a task for all that a man 
has of fortitude and delicacy," applies with 
equal force to a woman. Certainly, some- 



CONCLUSION 225 

where in a university such self-restraint must 
be taught. 

Another aim of the university should be to 
develop the civic and community spirit which 
women acquire with less ease than men because 
their traditions and race experience are against 
it. Individualism has been women's tendency; 
they have been intensely subjective and per- 
sonal in their point of view ; their education 
has until very recently been dictated, as Miss 
Agnes Repplier has well said, by the necessi- 
ties and desires of the family life with which 
they have been almost exclusively identified. 
Education to-day does not at bottom wish to 
undermine or underrate the virtues and graces 
which the earlier regime cultivated ; it does 
seek to add to the individualistic point of 
view and community spirit, so that out of love 
for one's own child may come an intelligent 
interest in the whole subject of child welfare 
or infant mortality. It would seek to combine 
with a sense of responsibility for one or two 
poor families to whom one is bound by ties of 
special interest, a desire to help solve ques- 
tions of charity organizations and social set- 
tlements. If a young woman has during her 



226 THE DEAN OF WOMEN 

university career been made aware, both inside 
the classroom and outside of the college com- 
munity, of her inescapable obligation to bring 
her trained mind and unselfish spirit to bear 
upon questions of human welfare wherever 
she may meet them, she cannot fail to take her 
place and contribute her share to the world's 
work. 

The ideal college woman would be a splen- 
did product. Cultivated and disciplined in 
mind, superb in physique, gracious and cour- 
teous in manner, unselfish, honest, self-con- 
trolled, and tolerant, these are all part of one's 
conception of what college graduates should 
be. It is the ultimate aim of every dean of 
women to make as far as possible this dream 
come true. To that end she in reality is doing 
all her work. Her problems of living condi- 
tions, of student employment, of vocational 
guidance, of student discipline, of the social 
life, of the intellectual life — all these are but 
different aspects of the same fundamental 
purpose, to develop the finest and highest type 
of college woman. Superficially viewed, her 
work often seems made up of endless detail, 
of "odd jobs" that no one else wishes to do ; 



CONCLUSION 227 

but if her position and her conception of her 
position are keyed to a higher pitch, with a 
real theme running in and out and through it 
all, the result should be a harmonious whole. 
Then will the dean of women become an 
essential factor in the life and ideals of an 
institution which shall be in truth what it is 
in name — coeducational. 



APPENDIX A 

SELF-GOVEKNMENT ASSOCIATION OF 
THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

CONSTITUTION 

ARTICLE I 
NAME 

The name of this Association shall be "The 
Self-Government Association of the Women Stu- 
dents of the University of Wisconsin." 

ARTICLE II 
OBJECT 

The object of this Association shall be to regu- 
late all matters pertaining to the student life of 
its members which do not fall under the jurisdic- 
tion of the Faculty ; to further in every way the 
spirit of unity among the women of the Univer- 
sity ; to increase their sense of responsibility to- 
wards each other, and to be a medium by which 
the social standards of the University can be made 
and kept high. 

ARTICLE III 
MEMBERSHIP 

All women of the University shall be ipso facto 
members of the Association. Graduate students 
shall be exempt from S. G. A. dues. 



230 APPENDIX 

AKTICLE IV 

Section 1. The officers of the Association shall 
be a President, a Vice-President, a Secretary, and 
a Treasurer. 

Section 2. The duties of the officers shall be as 
follows : — 

(a) The President shall call and preside over 
mass meetings and meetings of the Executive Board 
and shall perform the general duties of an execu- 
tive. 

(6) The Vice-President shall officiate in the ab- 
sence of the President and shall be chairman of a 
committee in charge of all rooms for which the 
Association assumes responsibility. 

(c) The Secretary shall record all minutes of 
mass and Executive Board meetings. 

(d) The Treasurer shall collect, keep, and dis- 
burse all the moneys of the Association upon order 
of the President and Secretary, and shall present 
fortnightly and annual reports and shall be custo- 
dian of all S. G. A. pins. 

EXECUTIVE BOAED 

Section 1. The four officers together with rep- 
resentatives from each of the thirteen town dis- 
tricts, the house chairman of each lodging-house, 
and each hall of residence, one representative of 
the women of each fraternity house, and two repre- 
sentatives from each of the halls of residence, shall 
constitute the Executive Board of which the Presi- 
dent of the Association shall be chairman. 



APPENDIX 231 

Section 2. It shall be the duty of the Board to 
carry out the resolutions passed by the whole Asso- 
ciation ; to be immediately responsible for matters 
which come under the jurisdiction of the Associa- 
tion ; to be directly responsible for all matters per- 
taining to the social life of the women of the Uni- 
versity. 

Section 3. All rules of conduct adopted by the 
women of the halls of residence, the women of the 
fraternity houses, and the women lodging in town 
shall be submitted to the Executive Board which 
shall submit them for approval to the Student In- 
terests' Committee of the Faculty. 

Section 4. No woman shall be eligible to mem- 
bership on the Executive Board who has not a 
standing satisfactory to the Faculty Executive Com- 
mittees of the University. 

Section 5. Presidents of the women's organiza- 
tions in the University shall be ex officio honorary 
members of the Executive Board. 

ELECTIONS 

Section 1. The officers and members of the 
Executive Board shall be elected in April, the date 
and place of holding the election to be determined 
by the committee in charge of elections. The offi- 
cers and members shall hold office for one year. 

Section 2. The President, Vice-President, Sec- 
retary, and Treasurer shall be elected by ballot of 
the whole Association. The President must have 
previously served on the Executive Board. 

Section 8. The members of the Executive Board 



232 APPENDIX 

shall be chosen by the various bodies that they rep- 
resent, half of the members being chosen the first 
semester and half the second. 

ARTICLE VII 
MEETINGS 

Section 1. Mass meetings of the Association 
shall be held at the discretion of the President, or 
of the Executive Board, or of ten members of the 
Association. 

Section 2. At all meetings of the Association, 
one tenth of the members shall constitute a quorum 
for the transaction of business. 

Section 3. Meetings of the Executive Board 
shall be held every two weeks. 

Section 4. Koberts' Rules of Order shall be 
the standard of parliamentary usage for the Asso- 
ciation. 

Section 5. Mass meetings shall be considered 
properly advertised if the notices of such meetings 
appear in the Cardinal and are posted on two con- 
spicuous bulletin boards five days before the meet- 
ing. 

ARTICLE VIII 

FINANCES 

Section 1. The necessary funds for Association 
purposes shall be supplied by the annual tax upon 
the members of the Association. 

Section 2. The disbursement of the fund shall 
be left to the discretion of the Executive Board. 

Section 3. At the annual election, the Presi- 



APPENDIX 233 

dent shall appoint three members of the Associa- 
tion to audit the Treasurer's books and issue a 
statement of the finances. 

ARTICLE IX 
AMENDMENTS 

Section 1. A two-thirds majority vote of the 
members present at a properly advertised mass 
meeting shall be required for the amendment of 
the constitution. 

ARTICLE X 
All questions of the interpretation of this con- 
stitution shall be referred to the Executive Board, 
whose decision shall be final. 

ARTICLE XI 

THE POINT SYSTEM 
Object : — 
The object of the point system is threefold : 

(1) To relieve the few overburdened women, 
who, because they have proved themselves capable, 
have become the logical recipients of more duties 
than they can fulfill without injury to their health ; 

(2) To insure more undivided attention and con- 
sequently more efficient performance of the several 
duties ; and 

(3) To increase the number of women who re- 
ceive the invaluable training in organization work 
and executive ability. 

The Hequirements : — 

No member of the Self-Government Association 



234 APPENDIX 

shall at any given time carry more than twenty 
points, the number of points being arbitrarily as- 
signed to the several duties according to the rela- 
tive amount of work involved in the fulfillment 
of such duties. The schedule, the enforcement of 
which rests with the judicial committee, is drawn 
up by Keystone and subject to change at the dis- 
cretion of that body. 

The, Schedule : — 

President of S. G. A 15 

President of W. A. A 12 

President of Y. W. C. A 14 

Managing Editor of the Woman's Page of the Cardinal 8 

University Editor of the Woman's Page of the Cardinal 6 

President of Castalia 7 

President of Pythia 7 

President of Round Table 7 

President of Glee Club 5 

President of Red Domino 5 

President of Pan Hellenic 6 

President of Equal Suffrage League 9 

President of Consumer's League . 7 

Member of the Badger Board 9 

Secretary of S. G. A 8 

Vice-President of S. G. A 8 

Treasurer of S. G. A 8 

Member of the S. G. A. Board ....,.,.. 4 

Reporter on college paper . 4 

Treasurer of Y. W. C. A 6 

Standing committee 6 

Other Vice-Presidents 2 

Other Secretaries and Treasurers 4 

Y. W. C. A. Cabinet 8 

Heads of sports (athletics) 4 

Dramatics, major part in play 5 

Dramatics, minor part in play 3 



APPENDIX 235 

BY-LAWS 

1. All girls of the University are required to 
leave all parties at 12 o'clock, except "formal" 
parties when they shall leave at one o'clock. 

2. No girls in the University shall attend mid- 
week parties without the sanction of University 
authorities. 

3. An annual tax of fifty cents shall be levied 
upon all women of the University. 

4. No woman in the University shall occupy a 
room in a house where men are located except by 
special permission from the Dean of Women. 

5. A bulletin presenting all activities of S. G. A. 
shall be published annually. 

STUDENT JUDICIAL COMMITTEE 

ARTICLE I 

A Student Judicial Committee shall be consti- 
tuted consisting of seven members, including the 
President of S. G. A., three members of the Ex- 
ecutive Board and three from the University at 
large. Exclusive of the President of S. G. A. who 
shall be chairman of the committee, three of the 
members shall be seniors and three juniors who 
shall be appointed by the Board. Appointments 
shall be made on or before October 10. Mem- 
bers shall hold office during the remainder of their 
undergraduate course. Vacancies shall be filled as 
they occur. The secretary shall be chosen by the 



236 APPENDIX 

members of the committee and shall keep a com- 
plete record of all its proceedings. Notice of the 
decisions reached by the Student Discipline Com- 
mittee shall be sent immediately to the Faculty 
Discipline Committee, the Dean of Women, and to 
the Dean of the College of which the student tried 
is a member. 

ARTICLE II 

The Student Judicial Committee shall have orig- 
inal and exclusive jurisdiction in all cases of dis- 
cipline of women undergraduates except in cases 
of dishonesty in University work and in all cases 
arising in the summer session. 

ARTICLE III 

In cases of suspension, the evidence with the 
recommendation of the committee shall be trans- 
mitted to the University Faculty through the Fac- 
ulty Discipline Committee. In case of any student 
found guilty by the Student Committee, the Faculty 
Committee on Discipline shall, if within its power, 
carry out the recommendation of the committee, and 
the Faculty Discipline Committee shall immedi- 
ately suspend the student until the next meeting 
of the University Faculty. 

ARTICLE IV 

Any student whose suspension is recommended 
by the Student Committee may appear before the 
Faculty Discipline Committee on the ground that 
there is evidence bearing upon the case that was 



APPENDIX 237 

not brought out in the trial by the Student Com- 
mittee. In case of such an appeal by a student, the 
Faculty Discipline Committee, after due investiga- 
tion, shall either dismiss the appeal or remand the 
case to the Student Committee for hearing with its 
findings and recommendations thereon. When the 
case has been reheard by the Student Committee, 
the Faculty Discipline Committee shall transmit 
the final decision of the Student Committee un- 
modified to the Faculty. 

ARTICLE V 

Nothing in the above provisions for the constitu- 
tion of the Student Committee and its jurisdiction 
shall in any way annul or limit the present right of 
the student to appeal to the Faculty in discipline 
cases. 

SCHOLARSHIP 

In 1907, S. G. A. established a loan fund to be 
used to assist University women to complete their 
course. In 1914 it was deemed advisable to change 
the loan fund to a cash scholarship, since it could 
fulfill its purpose better when given in that form. 
The scholarship is awarded each year to the woman 
whom a faculty committee thinks the appropriate 
recipient. In 1914 it was awarded to Vera C 
Zuehlke. 

There are several loan funds available for young 
women who need assistance and they are adminis- 
tered in the same way as the S. G. A. scholarship. 
They are in the hands of the Secretary of the Re- 



238 APPENDIX 

gents of the University and may be drawn on to 
the amount of fifty dollars a year. Usually notes 
are given for five years with a low rate of interest 
and the funds are at the disposal of those who need 
them. 

REPORT OF THE TREASURER OF S. G. A., 

1913-14 

Receipts 

Balance forwarded $52 24 

Dues and fines 322 50 

Union mixers 93 68 

Loan fund party 106 20 

From Mrs. Mathews • . . 13 28 

Total $587 90 

Expenditures 

S. G. A. teas and parties $189 75 

Printing and stationery 112 26 

Badger cut 6 00 

Scholarship . • 100 00 

Vocational conference 25 85 

Circus 14 08 

Conference (1912-13) 44 60 

Barnard dedication 30 50 

Badger cut (1912-13) 10 00 

Total $533 04 

Total receipts $587 90 

Total expenditures 533 04 

Balance on hand $54 86 

Respectfully submitted by 

Georgia Miner, Treasurer. 



APPENDIX 239 

OFFICERS OF S. G. A. FOR 1914-15 

President, Katharine Faville ; Vice-President, 
Esther Kelly ; Secretary, Helen Jane Zillmer ; 
Treasurer, Hattie Engsberg. 

The Judicial Committee — Seniors : Louise 
Schoenleber, Ruth Peck, Katherine Cronin ; Jun- 
iors : Helena Hanson, Hattie Engsberg, Rachel 
Skinner ; Molly Gedney, Chairman. 

SOCIAL AFFAIRS OF S. G. A. 

Introduction Party 

On September 26, there will be given the first 
S. G. A. party, to which all University girls are 
invited. This is a splendid opportunity for both 
new and old girls to become acquainted and has 
proven a great success in previous years. 

Hallowe'en Party 

The annual fall costume party for girls will be 
held in Lathrop Hall the evening of October 31. 
Prizes are usually given to the girls having the most 
unique costumes. 

Loan Fund Party 

The Loan Fund party is a dance which will be 
held January 16 and to which the girls invite men. 
The proceeds of the party are used for the loan 
fund. 



240 APPENDIX 

Apeil Fool's Party 

A spring costume party is given on April 1, at 
which all participants garb themselves in a style 
which is in keeping with the spirit of the occasion. 

Mixers 

During the year, S. G. A. working with the Union 
will give mixers for all University men and women. 
Various forms of entertainment besides dancing are 
usually provided. 

Teas 

During the year, tea is served in Lathrop Hall 
on certain days for all University women. These 
teas are a strong factor in bringing together Uni- 
versity girls and broadening the social spirit among 
them. 

WOMEN'S ORGANIZATIONS 

Young Women's Christian Association 

The Young Women's Christian Association is 
an organization whose avowed purpose is " to unite 
the women students in common loyalty to Jesus 
Christ." To this end it provides Bible and mission 
study classes to train the University women in the 
ideals and world-wide aspects of Christianity. It 
holds regular weekly vesper services on Sunday 
at 4 : 45 p.m., of a devotional character, at which 
speakers talk of the practical aspects of Christian 
living and belief. 



APPENDIX 241 

Further, the Association tries to act as a medium 
through which young women may learn to be more 
intelligent concerning the general functions of good 
citizenship and concerning life-work possibilities 
along the line of social service. 

And finally, the Association finds perhaps its 
greatest usefulness in working towards a standard 
of Christian living for University students them- 
selves. President, Majorie Nind. 

Castalia 

Castalia is a girl's literary society which was or- 
ganized in 1864. The membership is limited to sixty 
chosen by the society. Every one is welcome to 
attend the programs which are held in Lathrop Hall 
every Friday evening at seven o'clock. 

Pythia 

Pythia is a girl's literary society of which the 
membership is limited to sixty chosen by the society. 
Every one may attend the meetings which are held 
every Friday evening at seven o'clock in Music 
Hall. A social meeting is held once a month. Pres- 
ident, Anita Reinking. 

Bound Table 

Round Table is a girl's literary society to which 
every woman in the University is eligible. Meet- 
ings are held in Lathrop Hall every other Friday 
night at seven o'clock. President, Edna Dyar. 



242 APPENDIX 

Ked Domino 

Eed Domino is a dramatic society to which mem- 
bers are admitted by try-out and vote. President, 
Lucile Hatch. 

Glee Club 
The club is made up entirely of girls and meets 
every Tuesday and Thursday. Members are ad- 
mitted by try-out and vote. Meetings are held in 
Music Hall. President, Ruth Ebinger. 

Consumers' League 

The object of this league is to educate girls in 
economic conditions of the day and to work for 
the improvement of conditions of labor for women 
and children. Regular meetings are held. President, 
Hattie Engsberg. 

Equal Suffrage League 

This is a chapter of the National College Equal 
Suffrage League which is working to secure the 
franchise for women. Any woman student is eli- 
gible to membership. President, Gertrude Corbett. 

Theta Sigma Phi 

This is a chapter of the honorary national jour- 
nalistic sorority and was established at Wisconsin 
in 1910. Members are elected by the chapter in 
the fall of the year. President, Ruth Glassow. 



APPENDIX 243 

Keystoke 

Keystone is an honorary society and consists of 
the Presidents of Women's organizations in the 
University. 

Mortar Board 

Mortar Board is the honorary organization com- 
posed of senior women, elected at the end of the 
junior year and at the beginning of the senior 
year. The organization gives an annual scholar- 
ship of one hundred dollars. 

EuTHENics Club 

The Euthenics Club is an organization composed 
of girls of the Home Economics department. The 
purpose of the club is to provide a medium of dis- 
cussion for its members along lines which touch 
upon their work. It also holds social meetings. 
President, Eloise Samson. 

The Women's Athletic Association 

The Athletic Association is composed of women 
interested in athletics. Members are admitted to 
the organization when they have attained a stand- 
ard set by the executive board. Complete informa- 
tion regarding the association, its scope and aims, 
and the qualifications required for membership are 
given in the Athletic Calendar which may be ob- 
tained from the members of the association. Pres- 
ident, Julia Avery. 



244 APPENDIX 

Lathrop Hall 

Lathrop Hall is situated on University Avenue 
within easy access of University buildings. Its 
main purpose is to form the center of the social 
home life of the University women. To this end it 
is fully equipped with reception rooms, bowling 
alleys, a concert room, and parlors. 

At the right of the main entrance of the build- 
ing is the S. G. A. room, set aside for the special 
use of that organization. The meetings of the ex- 
ecutive board are held here. This room may be 
used for study by the women at all times. The 
parlor is also on the first floor. This artistic room 
with its massive fireplace and comfortable furni- 
ture and piano is becoming more and more a com- 
mon meeting place for all women of the University. 

The second floor contains the gymnasium and 
the concert room. The latter has a large seating 
capacity and, with its stage, is constantly in de* 
mand for large meetings and amateur plays. 

Applications for the use of rooms in this build- 
ing must be sent to Mrs. W. J. Keller, Lathrop 
Hall. 

REGISTRATION 

Every woman who registers in the University 
must also register with the Dean of Women, Mrs. 
L. K. Mathews, and when any change of address 
is made, it should be reported at once to her, as 
this is her only means of keeping a correct register 
of the addresses of the women of the University. 



APPENDIX 245 

EMPLOYMENT BUREAU 

Mrs. Clara B. Flett, mistress of Chadbourne 
Hall, will have charge of the employment bureau 
during 1914-15. Women who desire employment 
and persons in need of student help should register 
with Mrs. Flett. 



THE VOCATIONAL CONFERENCE 

A Vocational Conference, at which noted women 
from all parts of the country address the women of 
the University on lines of work other than teach- 
ing, is held by S. G. A. each year. The speakers 
are women who have been notably successful in 
their vocations and are well equipped to tell of the 
opportunities which they offer. Some of the voca- 
tions which are presented are : newspaper work, 
library work, secretarial positions, playground di- 
rectorships, interior decorating, executive positions 
in business, civil service, architectural gardening, 
nursing, Y. W. C. A. secretarial work, and charity 
organization work. The plan of the Conference 
Committee in 1913-14 was to inquire from the 
women students what newly-opened fields of work 
they would be interested in having presented. 
With this as a basis, the committee attempted to 
get the best women in the various fields to present 
in detail the scope, training, opportunity, and 
character of their work. In 1914, over four hun- 
dred women took advantage of the enviable oppor- 



246 APPENDIX 

tunity which the Vocational Conference offers, and 
it is felt that no woman can afford to miss the 
inspiration of this conference. 

During the registration days S. G. A. will have 
uniformed women from the city Y. W. C. A. at 
the stations to give any possible aid or information 
to girls coming here for the first time. 

To get to Lathrop Hall from either the North- 
western or the East Madison St. Paul station it is 
necessary to wait on the corner directly across from 
the St. Paul station and take a Wingra Park car 
going west. 

APPROVED ROOMING-HOUSES 

The Dean of Women, Mrs. Keller, Miss Sher- 
rill, and the women of the Faculty, with the co- 
operation of the women students themselves through 
their organizations, undertake to exercise such 
supervision and guidance over the girls in the 
lodging houses as will be helpful to them. 

According to letters filed by the landladies in the 
office of the Dean of Women, prices usually range 
from $1.75 to $6.50. No room is listed which is 
higher than $6.50 (for two in a room) except at 
Miss Gath's, where a few rooms are $8.00 for three 
in a room. 

Students are expected to stay in the rooms they 
choose for a whole semester ; if the landladies so 
stipulate, students may be required to stay the 
whole year. 



APPENDIX 247 

HOUSE CUSTOMS OF CHADBOURNE HALL 
ORGANIZATION 

The government of Chadbourne Hall is vested 
in a House Committee, consisting of a chairman, 
fire-captain, chairman of the social committee, the 
proctors of the several corridors, and one freshman. 

The House Chairman shall be a senior elected 
by ballot the second week in May, at which time 
the fire-captain, the chairman of the social com- 
mittee, and one S. G. A. representative are also 
elected. The proctors shall be chosen the second 
week of the school year, each corridor choosing 
one. Freshmen shall elect one representative of 
the House Committee the first week after Thanks- 
giving. The House Committee shall meet bi-weekly 
for reports and discussion and shall in all ways 
seek to secure the best interests of the Hall. A fif- 
teen-minute meeting of all residents shall be held 
fortnightly. 

Rules for the government of the Hall shall be 
submitted for the acceptance of the residents at 
the first Hall meeting of the year. 

A budget to cover the expense of daily papers, 
magazines, and incidental expenses shall be sub- 
mitted by the House Committee at the second Hall 
meeting of each semester. The assessment agreed 
upon at the meeting shall be paid within six weeks 
after the beginning of the semester. Explanations 
for delay must be made to the Mistress. 

Changes in the organization or rules can be made 
only by a two-thirds vote of the residents. 



248 APPENDIX 

RULES ADOPTED BY THE RESIDENTS 

Quiet hours are from 1.30 to 4.30, and from 8 
P.M. to 6.30 A.M., except on Fridays, wlien they are 
from 10 P.M. to 6.30 a.m. ; Saturdays, when they 
are from 10.30 p.m. to 8 a.m.; and Sunday after- 
noons, when they are from 3 to 5 p.m. Pianos shall 
not be played before 12 a.m. from Monday to Sat- 
urday inclusive. 

Men may be received on Saturday, Sunday, and 
holiday afternoons and any evening until 10 o'clock. 
Business calls of ten minutes' duration are permitted 
at other times. 

Parties may be attended only on Friday evening, 
Saturday evening, or the evening before a legal 
holiday and shall close at or before midnight. (This 
is in accordance with the general University rule.) 
Residents attending parties should leave their names 
with the Mistress, and any one returning later than 
12.30 must report to her the next day. Other ab- 
sences after 10 o'clock are by special permission of 
the Mistress. 

Bedroom slippers must be worn after 10 o'clock 
at night. 

Bathrooms must be vacated before 11 p.m. 

The student laundry must be kept in perfect 
order. Violations of this rule should be reported 
to the House Committee. 

Books and magazines must be left in the library 
unless special permission is obtained for taking 
them to other parts of the house. 



APPENDIX 249 

HOUSE RULES FOR LODGING-HOUSES 

Please give this to a Senior in your House 

You are requested, as soon as possible, to call 
the students in your house together to organize 
under the Self-Government Association of the 
University of Wisconsin. You are to choose a 
chairman who shall be preferably a senior, who 
shall serve on the Board of the Self-Government 
Association and after each meeting call her house 
together to report what has been done. If any 
freshman in your house, or any new student has 
not been assigned to a junior adviser, please let 
Dean Mathews know at once. The members of the 
house are asked to adopt the following rules, which 
are in force in Chadbourne and Barnard Halls, and 
combine the Self-Government Association and Fac- 
ulty Rules : — 

Quiet hours are from 1.30 to 4.30 and from 8 
P.M. to 6.30 A.M., except on Fridays when they are 
from 10 P.M. to 6.30 a.m.; Saturdays, when they 
are from 10.30 p.m. to 8 a.m. ; and Sunday after- 
noons, when they are from 3 to 5 p.m. Pianos shall 
not be played before 12 a.m. from Monday to 
Saturday inclusive. 

Men may be received on Saturday, Sunday, and 
holidays afternoons and any evening until 10 
o'clock. Business calls of ten minutes' duration are 
permitted at other times. 

Bedroom slippers must be worn after 10 o'clock 
at night. 



250 APPENDIX 

Bathrooms must be vacated before 11 p.m. 

There shall be no driving after 9 p.m. 

Parties may be attended only on Friday and 
Saturday evenings, in accordance with the general 
University rules, which also require such parties 
to close at 12 o'clock. (Exceptions to these rules 
are made only by the Student Interests* Commit- 
tee of the Faculty.) Residents attending parties 
should leave their names with the House Chair- 
man or landlady ; and any one returning later than 
12.30 must report to her next morning. Other ab- 
sences after 10 o'clock are by special permission. 
Students shall not attend midweek parties except 
with the permission of the Dean of Women. "^ 

Students in your house may adopt any other 
rules for their good conduct which they see fit to 
lay down. Copy of such rules should be filed in the 
office of the Dean of Women. 

Very truly yours, 
Katharine Faville, for the S. G. A> 
Lois K. Mathews, Dean of Women, 

HOUSE RULES FOR A SORORITY 

Your sorority is asked to adopt house rules as 
nearly as possible like the ones inclosed which are 
in force in Chadbourne and Barnard Halls, and 
combine the Self-Government Association and Fac- 
ulty Rules : — 

Quiet hours are from 1.30 to 4.30 and from 8 
P.M. to 6.30 A.M. ; except on Fridays, when they 
are from 10 p.m. to 6.30 a.m.; Saturdays, when 



APPENDIX 251 

they are from 10.30 p.m. to 8 a.m. ; and Sunday 
afternoons, when they are 3 to 5 p.m. Pianos shall 
not be played before 12 a.m. from Monday to 
Saturday inclusive. 

Bedroom slippers must be worn after 10 o'clock 
at night. 

Bathrooms must be vacated before 11 p.m. 

Men may be received on Saturday, Sunday, and 
holiday afternoons, and any evening until 10 o'clock. 
Business calls of 10 minutes' duration are per- 
mitted at other times. 

There shall be no driving after 9 P.M. 

Parties may be attended only on Friday and 
Saturday evenings, in accordance with the general 
University rules, which also require such parties to 
close at 12 o'clock. (Exceptions to these rules are 
made only by the Student Interests' Committee of 
the Faculty.) Residents attending parties should 
leave their names with the House President or 
House-Mother; and any one returning later than 
12.30 must report to her next morning. Other ab- 
sences after 10 o'clock are by special permission. 
Students shall not attend mid-week parties except 
with the permission of the Dean of Women. 

Students in your house may adopt any other 
rules for their good conduct which they see fit to 
lay down. Copy of such rules shall be filed in the 
office of the Dean of Women. 

Very truly yours, 
Kathakine Faville, for the S. G. A, 
Lois K. Mathews, Dean of Women, 



APPENDIX B 

THE MIDDLE WESTEKN INTERCOL- 
LEGIATE ASSOCIATION FOR WOM- 
EN'S SELF-GOVERNMENT 

CONSTITUTION 

ARTICLE! 
NAME 

The name of this organization shall be "The 
Middle Western Intercollegiate Association for 
Women's Self-Government." 

ARTICLE II 
PURPOSE 

The purpose of this Association shall be to dis- 
cuss the interests of the Women's Self-Govern- 
ment Associations of different colleges and uni- 
versities for mutual help and suggestion. 

ARTICLE III 
REQUIREMENTS OP MEMBERSHIP 

Any Woman's Organizations for Student Gov- 
ernment in colleges in the Mississippi Valley giv- 
ing an A.B. or an S.B. degree, in which preparatory 
schools are not included in the Student Govern- 
ment Organizations, and having an average of fifty 



APPENDIX 253 

or more women in the entering classes, shall be 
eligible to membership in this Association. 

ARTICLE IV 
ADMISSION TO MEMBERSHIP 

An Association of eligible organizations shall 
be formed at the first meeting, and all other organi- 
zations fulfilling the requirements for membership 
shall be admitted by application to the Executive 
Board at least thirty days before the annual meet- 
ing. 

ARTICLE V 

OFFICERS 

The executive power of the Association shall be 
vested in a President, Vice-President, and Treas- 
urer, and a Secretary, each to be chosen from a 
different college. 

ARTICLE VI 
ELECTION OF OFFICERS 

Section 1. The President shall be a member of 
the college at which the Conference of the next year 
is to be held. The Conference shall select by ballot 
the college from which the different officers shall 
be elected at the last business session. 

Section 2. The Self -Government Associations of 
the colleges selected shall choose said officers from 
the incoming Senior Class, who shall assume their 
duties in May and hold office for one year. 



254 APPENDIX 

ARTICLE VII 
DUTIES OF OFFICEKS 

Section 1. The duties of the President shall be 
to call and preside over the meetings o£ the Asso- 
ciation, to appoint committees, and to consult with 
the other officers as to the f ulQllment of the will of 
the Association. 

Section 2. The duties of the Vice-President and 
Treasurer shall be to assume the duties of the 
President, if necessary ; to collect and care for the 
dues of the Association, and to make an annual 
report to the Association of money expended. 

Section 3. The duties of the Secretary shall be 
to keep the minutes of the Association, sending a 
copy of those taken at the annual meeting to the 
President of the Self-Government Association of 
every college represented ; to keep a list of the 
members of the Association ; to provide the Presi- 
dent of every college in the Association with a copy 
of the Constitution ; and attend to the correspond- 
ence of the Association. 

ARTICLE VIII 

executive board 

The Executive Board shall consist of the Presi- 
dent, Vice-President, and Secretary. The President 
shall act as Chairman. The Vice-President shall act 
as Secretary. 



APPENDIX 255 

ARTICLE IX 
DUTIES OF THE EXECUTIVE BOARD 

The Executive Board shall : — 

(a) Receive and decide upon applications for 
membership in the Association, and recommend 
the expulsion of any member falling below the re- 
quirements of the Association. 

(5) Give, as soon as possible, a list of the mem- 
bers of the Association to the Secretary of the As- 
sociation. 

(c) Receive and present at the annual meeting 
of the Association amendments to the Constitu- 
tion. 

(d) Receive invitations for the Conferences, and 
present the same at the annual meeting of the As- 
sociation. 

(e) Provide for all other matters which belong 
to an Executive Board. 

ARTICLE X 

Section 1. A Conference shall be held annually, 
in the month of November at a week end, the busi- 
ness of the meeting not to exceed a time of three 
days. 

Section 2. A vote of the delegates shall be 
taken at each annual Conference to determine the 
place for the Conference the following year, 

ARTICLE XI 

Section 1. Any amendment to this Constitution 
must be proposed by at least one third of the mem- 



256 APPENDIX 

bers of the Association, and must have a two-thirds 
vote at an annual meeting for adoption. 

Section 2. Such amendments shall be sub- 
mitted to the Executive Board and to each mem- 
ber of the Association not less than two weeks 
before the Conference. 

BY-LAWS 

1. Two thirds of the delegates to the annual 
Conference shall constitute a quorum. 

2. The meetings of the Conference shall be con- 
ducted according to Roberts' " Rules of Order," in 
so far as they are applicable. 

3. The Constitution shall be read aloud by the 
Secretary at the annual meeting. 

4. The annual dues for members of the Associa- 
tion shall be fifteen dollars ($15.00), payable to 
the Treasurer of the Association annually, not later 
than October thirty-first. 

5. The dues shall be expended for the entertain- 
ment of the delegates to the Association at the 
Conference; for printing and typewriting and for 
other necessary expenses at the discretion of the 
President and Treasurer. 

6. Members of colleges or schools not eligible to 
membership in the Association may attend the an- 
nual Conference, though not as members or guests 
of the college at which the Conference is held. 

7. The college at which the Conference is held 
shall notify the Secretary of the Association of the 



APPENDIX 257 

time of the meetings, and she, in return, shall notify 
the members of the Association. 

8. Each member of the Association shall send 
to the annual Conference two delegates, who shall 
be its President and a student who expects to re- 
turn to the college the following year. 

9. Any organization of which the Vice-President 
or Secretary in the Inter-Collegiate Association is 
a member shall be entitled to send such officer to 
the Conference at the expense of the Association, 
in addition to two regular delegates ; but such organ- 
ization shall not cast more than two votes. 

10. Any amendment to the By-Laws must have 
a plurality vote at an annual meeting for its adop- 
tion. 



APPENDIX C 

EEPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON 
EXTRA-CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES 

Your committee was appointed to consider the 
question of extra-curricular activities. 

Broadly viewed, the extra-curricular activities 
form one part of the college life of the students, 
and the studies of the curriculum form the other 
part. The more prominent of the former are ath- 
letics, debating, dramatics, journalism, music, poli- 
tics, and society in its various forms. The connection 
between curricular and extra-curricular activities 
is in many cases quite close (e.g., debating), but 
the fundamental distinction between the two re- 
quires no demonstration. Nor is it necessary to 
argue the point that over-emphasis on the one means 
under-attention to the other. 

The problem confronting this and every other 
university in the country is to establish proper re- 
lations between the two, to the end that the primary 
claims of the curriculum may be recognized by the 
students, and that the extra-curricular activities, 
sanely participated in, may attain their proper 
place as an essential complement to the work of 
the curriculum. 

Your committee is fully conscious that the estab- 
lishment of these ideal relations between the curri- 



APPENDIX 259 

cular and the extra-curricular cannot be achieved 
by faculty enactments alone, and that a close ap- 
proximation to the ideal will depend largely upon 
the clarification of the views of the people and the 
development of high qualities of leadership among 
faculty and students. 

Faculty supervision of extra-curricular activities 
is at present divided among several committees. 
Some of the activities are promoted or controlled by 
the Committee on Student Interests, some by the 
Athletic Council, some by departments whose cur- 
ricular subjects are closely related to extra-curri- 
cular activities, some by the Censor of Student 
Publications, some (interests rather than activities) 
by the Committee on Hygiene, and some by more 
than one of these regulative agencies. There are, 
of course, activities and interests which are and 
should be left to themselves. 

The existing system of divided responsibility ren- 
ders it difficult or impossible (1) to establish a more 
reasonable balance among the extra-curricular ac- 
tivities ; (2) to obviate sufficiently concentration of 
functions and its frequent result, the undue excite- 
ment of large bodies of students ; (3) and to organ- 
ize the activities in such a way as to make them 
most valuable, that is, to organize them from the 
standpoint of the active participants instead of from 
the standpoint of the passive onlookers. Further- 
more, the present division of responsibility deprives 
faculty control of a fuller prestige, which should win 
for it the more cheerful and prompt support of the 
students. 



260 APPENDIX 

The existing faculty agencies of supervision have 
rendered very important services, and your com- 
mittee frankly asserts the obligations of the Uni- 
versity to the faculty members who have devoted 
so much time to relatively thankless tasks. Your 
committee believes, however, that the present com- 
mittees, because they are several and not one, do not 
possess the knowledge of the extra-curricular ac- 
tivities as a whole, the power and the prestige, which 
the most effective faculty leadership demands. 

Your committee is convinced that the correlation 
of the extrarcurricular activities, and the placing 
of them under the general direction of one faculty 
committee, would be of benefit to the curricular and 
extrarcurricular life of the students. The advan- 
tages at present inhering in the " division of labor " 
among the various committees would be preserved 
by the organization of strong sub-committees. The 
general committees would survey the field of the ex- 
tra-curricular as a whole, would establish a more 
reasonable balance among the various activities, and 
would be able to introduce those reforms which 
escape the attention or transcend the powers of 
the present committees. The sub-committees would 
carry on the work of detailed administration. 

The fusion of the Social Committee and the Com- 
mittee on Dramatic and Musical Organizations, 
some years ago, into the Committee on Student In- 
terests, and the work done by that committee since 
its organization, have brought about a praiseworthy 
advance in simplification and efficiency. Your com- 
mittee advocates a fuller recognition of the prin- 



APPENDIX 261 

ciple of unification and correlation which, within a 
large but still restricted sphere, has already justi- 
fied itself in the work of the Committee on Student 
Interests. 

In sum, your committee depreciates the existing 
division of responsibility and favors the appoint- 
ment of one committee with jurisdiction over the 
whole extra-curricular domain. Subject to faculty 
control, and supported by a series of strong sub- 
committees, the committee should regulate each 
activity that requires regulation, should establish a 
more reasonable balance among the various activi- 
ties, should promote the wholesomeness of the 
extra-curricular life of every student, and in all 
should foster respect for the superior claims of the 
curriculum. 

Your committee is not aware that the whole 
problem could be further simplified by the faculty 
adopting additional measures designed to make cur- 
ricular interests appeal to students, capable of schol- 
arly achievement, who at present devote their best 
energies to extra-curricular ends. Your committee, 
however, deems the suggestion of such measures no 
part of its function. 

RECOMMENDATIONS 

Your committee submits the following unanimous 
recommendations : — 

1. There shall be a Committee on Student 
Life and Interests. 

2. The committee shall have jurisdiction, sub- 
ject to faculty direction and control, over all the 



262 APPENDIX 

extra-curricular activities and interests of the stu- 
dents. 

3. The duties and records of the Committee on 
Student Interests, the Athletic Council, the Censor 
of Student Publications, and the Committee on 
Hygiene shall be transferred to the Committee on 
Student Life and Interests and its sub-committees. 
Subject to the modifications hereby introduced, the 
existing regulations shall remain in force. 

4. Composition of the Committee. The Com- 
mittee shall consist of seven members. 

(a) A chairman. The President shall appoint 
the chairman, with the understanding that he shall 
devote the major portion of his time to the work 
of the Committee. 

The chairman's secretary shall be competent to 
take dictation and to keep the records of the Com- 
mittee and the sub-committees. 

(5) An assistant chairman. The Dean of Women 
shall be assistant chairman. 

(c) Three members to be appointed by the Presi- 
dent from departments directly in touch with extra- 
curricular activities. 

(c?) Two members to be appointed by the Presi- 
dent from departments not directly connected with 
extra-curricular activities. 

5. Administkative Sub-Committees. The 
whole field of extra-curricular activities and inter- 
ests shall be sub-divided, for the purposes of de- 
tailed supervision, into five sections, namely : (1) 
Athletics ; (2) Debating, Oratory, and Publica- 
tions; (3) Living Conditions ; (4) Music and Dra- 



APPENDIX 263 

matics ; (5) Society, Politics, and Fraternities ; and 
there shall be five sub-committees corresponding 
thereto. 

Each of the five members mentioned in 4 (c) and 
(cZ) shall serve as chairman of an appropriate sub- 
committee, and the chairman and assistant chair- 
man of the Committee shall be members ex officio 
of each sub-committee. The remainder of the mem- 
bership of each sub-committee shall be made up of 
such members of the faculty as shall be necessary, 
such members to be appointed by the President on 
the nomination of the Committee. 

The sub-committees shall perform such duties as 
are assigned to them by the Committee, and their 
decisions shall be subject to review by the Com- 
mittee. 

6. The Committee shall present to the Faculty, 
at its first or second meeting in the autumn, a printed 
report on the work of the preceding year. A report 
on the work of the biennium shall be published in 
the Biennial Report of the Regents. 

(Signed) G. C. Sellery, Chairman, 
(Six other members of the Committee.) 

Marchf 1914. 



INDEX 



Abbott, Dr. Lyman, addresses 
students, 186. 

Academic duties. See Dean of 
Women, and Intellectual life. 

Adirondack^, summer employ- 
ment in, 101. 

Administration, in colleges, 1, 
5, 9, 22, 35, 36, 213, 215; posi- 
tions for, 113, 133; sometimes 
unnecessary, 155. See also 
Dean of Women, and Fac- 
ulty. 

Adviser of women, title used, 1, 
9, 10, 12. 

Affiliated Women's Colleges, 
intellectual life in, 191, 192. 

Agencies, for women students, 
92, 104. 

Alumnae, support occupational 
bureaus, 104; catalogue of, 
107. See also Association 
of Collegiate Alumnae, and 
Graduates. 

Alumni, duties of, 60; loyalty, 
170. 

Alvord, Katharine S., address, 
122. 

Appeals, on disciplinary prob- 
lems, 23, 236, 237. 

April Fool's Day, party on, 240. 

Association of Collegiate Alum- 
nae, influence of, 13. 

Athletics, for women, 31, 32, 
128, 132, 154; interference 
with class-work, 153; organi- 
zations for, 202, 222, 243; 
importance of, 224; officers, 
234; supervision of, 258, 259, 
262. 



Avery, Julia, president of 
Women's Athletic Associa- 
tion, 243. 

Badger, Wisconsin University 
annual, 234. 

Banks, women's departments 
in, 113. 

Barnard Hall, Wisconsin Uni- 
versity dormitory, 56, 57; 
rules for, 249, 250. 

Bathrooms, in dormitories, 55; 
in lodging-houses, 73; rules 
for, 248, 250, 251. 

Bennett, Helen, manager of 
Bureau of Occupations, 122. 

Bird, Ethel, address, 122. 

Boarding, houses for, 41, 77; 
prices for, 42; in chapter 
houses, 62. See also Lodging- 
houses. 

Bryn Mawr College, curricu- 
lum, 16; self-government in, 
127, 128. 

Business. See Commerce. 

Cafeterias, value of, 85. 
Camp-Fire Girls, movement, 

131. 
Camps, college students aid in, 

101-04, 131. 
Cardinal, Wisconsin daily, 232. 
Castalia Literary Society, in 

University of Wisconsin, 204, 

234, 241. 
Catherwood, Robert, address, 

122. 
Censorship. See Press. 
Chadbourne Hall, at Univeis 



266 



INDEX 



sity of Wisconsin, 40, 245; 
house rules, 247-50. 

Chapel exercises, substitute for, 
172, 185; value of, 176, 211. 

Chaperous, dean should not 
act as, 17, 37, 191. See also 
House-mothers. 

Chapter houses. See Greek- 
letter societies. 

Charity organizations, college 
women in, 113, 122, 245. 

Chemistry, training in, 116. 

Chicago, occupational bureau 
at, 106, 122; playgrounds, 122. 

Child labor,laws regulating, 112. 

Children, cared for by students, 
92, 95. 

Civic centers, schoolhouse as, 
84; women workers in, 113. 

Civic consciousness, importance 
of, 225. 

Civil service, college women in, 
122, 245. 

Class spirit, in state universi- 
ties, 169. 

Classroom, dean of women in, 
2, 32, 33, 34, 36; high stand- 
ards in, 156, 157. See also 
Intellectual life. 

Clerical work, for women stu- 
dents, 92, 95. 96, 104. See 
also Secretaries. 

Clinics, in universities, 223, 224. 

Coeducation, in the United 
States, 1, 3, 7, 16, 24; changes 
in, 14, 17, 56; effect on 
women, 18, 19, 24; conserv- 
atism in, 21; in vocational 
training, 118. 

Coeducational institutions, ex- 
pulsion from, 27; physical 
education in, 31, 32; effect on 
dress, 64; self-government 
in. 129, 136, 148; social life 
in, 133, 134, 150, 151, 159; 
women's position in, 136, 190, 
191, 227; imitation of men. 



158, 208; intellectual life in, 
194. See also State univer- 
sities. 

Colleges. See State universi- 
ties. Women's colleges, and 
the several colleges and uni- 
versities. 

Columbia University, student 
employment in, 90; graduate 
students, 176. 

Commerce, college women in, 
114, 245; training for, 116. 

Conservation of traditions, in 
state universities, 26. 

Consumers' League, function 
of, 26; in University of Wis- 
consin, 234, 246. 

Continuation schools, purpose 
of, 112; teachers for, 120. 

Convocations, for freshmen, 
170, 171. See also Chapel 
exercises. 

Cooperation in living condi- 
tions, 78-80; in self-govern-* 
ment associations, 147-49; 
with parents desirable, 200. 

Cooperative dormitory, value 
of, 78-80, 87, 97, 98, 166. 

Corbett, Gertrude, President 
of Equal Suffrage League, 
242. 

Council for women students, 
172. 

Courses. See Curriculum. 

Courtesy, should be developed, 
160, 161. See also Manners. 

Cramming, evils of, 210. 

Crane, Mrs. Caroline Bartlett, 
address, 122. 

Cronin, Katherine, on judicial 
committee, 239. 

Current events, in college pa- 
pers, 206. 

Curriculum, adjustment, 35; 
198, 199. 

Dean of Women, position, 1-39; 



INDEX 



267 



office created, 7, 10, 13, 21; 
relation to faculty, 10, 11, 19, 
29-33, 35-37, 39, 190, 214, 
215; equipment, 17, 39, 190- 
92, 210, 211, 213-20; relation 
to student activities, 25, 26, 
76, 262; influence supported, 
27, 28; relation to educational 
policy, 29, 31, 119; classifi- 
cation of work, 35-39, 213- 
21; assistants, 39, 101, 121, 
218, 220; relation to living 
conditions, 40-86, 198, 226, 
235; residence, 43, 44; relation 
to Greek-letter societies, 63, 
66, 69, 70; relation to stu- 
dents at home, 80, 82; rela- 
tion to student employment, 
82, 83, 91, 95, 103-105, 226; 
registration system, 88, 89, 
244; administers loan funds, 
97, 98; relation to graduate 
students, 105-07; cooperates 
with occupational bureaus, 
106, 107; relation to public 
schools, 113; relation to voca- 
tional education, 120, 121; 
relation to vocational guid- 
ance, 121-26, 167, 226; rela- 
tion to social life, 134, 159, 
161, 164-67, 192, 213, 216, 
217, 226, 236; relation to self- 
government associations, 138, 
139, 141, 149, 188; relation 
to public opinion, 171, 172; 
relation to intellectual life, 
190-92, 198, 201, 208, 210, 
211, 213-15, 220, 226; ulti- 
mate aim, 226, 227. 

Deans, of various colleges, 23, 
220. 

Debating, in college life, 258, 
262. 

Degrees, dean should have 
higher, 4, 213, 214; exami- 
nations for, 36; granted with 
distinction, 200, 201. 



Dining-rooms, in dormitories, 
47, 48, 51-53, 85. 

Discipline, women's attitude 
toward, 23; difficulties in 
large institutions, 27, 28 
committees for, 35, 134, 135 
enforcement, 173-78, 189 
various methods, 178-82 
for dishonesty, 182; parental 
cooperation in, 187; students' 
judgments in, 188; student 
boards for, 235-38. 

Dishonesty, methods of dealing 
with, 182, 183, 188; exemp- 
tion for, 236. 

Doctor of Philosophy, value of 
degree, 213, 214. 

Dormitories, deans in, 2, 43, 44; 
in state universities, 7, 8; for 
women, 35; advantages of, 
40-42, 66, 166; prices in, 42, 
43; management of, 42-46; 
ideal size, 47; rooms and fur- 
nishings, 48-56; social life in, 
56, 106; cooperative, 56-59; 
organization of, 56-59, 133, 
137, 138, 230; rules for, 247, 
248. 

Dramatics, in college life, 157, 
158, 258, 260, 262; in point 
system, 234. 

Dress, for college women, 64. 

Dues for Self-Government As- 
sociation, 141, 147, 232, 235. 

Dyar, Edna, president of 
Round Table, 241. 

Ebinger, Ruth, president of 

Glee Club, 242. 
Economics, courses in, 164. 
Employment, for self-support, 

36; problems of, 44, 90-107; 

dangers in, 78; conditions in, 

82, 83; standardization of, 94; 

records for, 100. 
Emery, Anne Crosby, dean of 

women, 127. 



268 



INDEX 



Engineering, college for, 117, 
118. 

Engsberg, Hattie, treasurer of 
Self-Governmfent Associa- 
tion, 239; president of Con- 
sumers' League, 242. 

Enrollment. See Registration. 

Entertainments. See Social 
Life. 

Entrance requirements, in 
women's colleges, 192, 193; 
in state universities, 194, 
195. 

Equal Suffrage League, 26; offi- 
cers at Wisconsin University, 
234, 242. 

Euthenics Club, at University 
of Wisconsin, 243. 

Exceptional student, allowances 
for, 30. ^ 

Extra - curricular activities, 
committee report on, 258- 
63. 

Factory inspectors, college 
women as, 122. 

Faculty of colleges, changes 
in, 4; relation to administra- 
tion, 6, 8, 9, 35; dean should 
belong to, 10, 11, 13, 19, 20, 
29-33, 35-39, 190, 214; rela- 
tion to educational policy, 29, 
30; relation to discipline, 76, 
134, 135, 178, 181, 183, 236, 
237; regulations of, 129, 173, 
188; advisory system, 140; 
personal relation to students, 
193-97, 209, 210; relation 
to standards, 199, 211, 212; 
relation to extra-curricular 
activities, 206, 258-63; rela- 
tion to self-government, 231. 

Faville, Katharine, president of 
Self-Government Associa- 
tion, 239, 250, 251. 

Fellowships, for graduate work, 
105. See also Scholarships. 



Flett, Mrs. Clara B., mistress 
of Chadbourne Hall, 245. 

Fox, Mrs. Elizabeth, address, 
122. 

Fraternities. See Greek letter 
societies. 

Freshmen, dean's relation to, 
37; in dormitories, 55-58, 197, 
247; in sororities, 67, 68; 
earning their way, 82; prepa- 
ration, 110; public opinion 
among, 130, 145; self-govern- 
ment aids, 139-41; Junior 
advisers for, 144, 145; class- 
room requirements of, 156, 
210; organized, 168-70; con- 
vocations for, 170, 171; rules, 
174, 175; disciplinary needs, 
174, 175, 178,180-85; dropped 
from college, 195; lack of 
faculty control, 196, 197. 

Friendship, founded on intel- 
lectual tastes, 203, 204. 

Gath, Miss Amelia, lodging- 
house of, 246. 

Gedney, Mary, on judicial 
committee, 239. 

Glassow, Ruth, president of 
Theta Sigma Phi, 242. 

Glee Club, officers, 234, 242. 

Graduate students, excluded 
from dormitories, 57; as 
house-mothers of chapter 
houses, 70; employment for, 
105-07; in endowed institu- 
tions, 176; influences of, 196; 
exemption from dues, 229. 

Graduate study, for teachers, 
4; for deans, 32. See also 
Degrees. 

Greek-letter societies, chapter- 
houses, 7, 8, 41, 61-63, 68; 
house-mothers, 7, 62, 63, 68- 
71, 198; association of, 26; 
organized, 60, 61; "rushing" 
among, 66-68; relation to 



INDEX 



269 



self-government, 69, 137, 230; 
graduate students as house- 
mothers of, 70; social life in, 
160, 162; rules for, 250, 251; 
faculty supervision of, 263. 
See also Pan-Hellenic League. 

Guests, in colleges, 49, 50. 

Gymnasium, for women, 84, 244. 
See also Physical education. 

Hallowe'en, celebrated, 142, 
239. 

Hanson, Helena, on judicial 
committee, 239. 

Harris, Emily, address, 122. 

Harvard University, student 
employment, 90; class spirit 
in, 169; graduate students in, 
176; professor in, 185. 

Hatch, Lucile, president of 
Red Domino, 242. 

Health, of self-supporting stu- 
dents, 82, 83, 92, 93; infirm- 
ary care, 87-89. 

High schools, preparation for 
university, 17, 156, 194, 195; 
attitude toward faculty of 
colleges, 130, 173, 174; social 
problems, 132; deans of wom- 
en for, 132, 133; self-govern- 
ment in, 179. 

Highmindedness, in college 
women, 221, 222. 

Holidays, room rent during, 74. 
See also the several holidays 
by name. 

Home economics, relation to 
dormitories, 45, 46; in chap- 
ter-houses, 63; in lodging- 
houses, 75; teachers for, 112, 
120, 126; in colleges, 116, 
118, 119; conferences on, 123; 
society among students of de- 
partment of, 243. 

Honor system, in universities, 
136; difficulties of, 183, 184, 
188. 



House-mothers, in chapter- 
houses, 7» 62, 63, 68-71, 198, 
251; cooperative dormitories, 
79. See also Mistress of dor- 
mitories. 

Housework, for women stu- 
dents, 92, 94, 95, 97. 

Hygiene, committees for, 35, 
259, 262. See also Health. 

Independence, need for growth 
of, 133. 

Indiana University, meeting 
at, 148. 

Individualism, dangers of, 225. 

Industrial education, progress 
in, 112; teachers for, 120. See 
also Vocational education. 

Infirmaries, for college women, 
87-89. 

Informality, in college life, 146. 

Institutional management, col- 
lege women in, 114. 

Insurance, forms of, 112. 

Integrity, should be inculcated, 
180, 181. 

Intellectual life, in sororities, 
65; dean's relationship to, 
190-92; in women's colleges, 
192-94; need of higher stand- 
ards, 194, 196-200, 211, 212; 
traditions of, 195; aided by 
literary societies, 201-04; by 
college press, 204-08. 

Intercollegiate activities, 147, 
148. See also Self-Govern- 
ment Association. 

Interior decorating, for college 
women, 245. 

Jewett, Sophie, at Wellesley 
College, 193. 

Journalism. See Press. 

Judgment, developed in college 
life, 165. 

Junior adviser system, advo- 
cated, 140, 143-46, 167, 168; 
at Wisconsin University, 249. 



270 



INDEX 



Juniors, in dormitories, 56, 57; 
aid underclassmen, 83, 167; 
enter university, 139, 140, 
145; society for, 169; intel- 
lectual standards of, 199, 
200. 

Kansas Agricultural College, 
chapel exercises, 176. 

Keller, Mrs. W. J., assistant 
to dean, 244, 246. 

Kelly, Esther, vice-president 
of Self-Government Associa- 
tion, 239. 

Keystone, honorary society, 
234, 243. 

Kitchenette, needed in dormi- 
tories, 55. 

Laboratory work, interference 
with, 92. 

Lady principal, title used, 1, 7. 

Landscape architecture, for col- 
lege women, 122, 125, 245. 

Lathrop Hall, women's build- 
ing at Wisconsin University, 
123, 239-41, 246; described, 
244. 

Laundry, cost of, 86; for stu- 
dent use, 86, 87, 248. 

Law, college for study of, 117, 
118. 

Lawyers, women as, 111-13. 

Lecture system, dangers of, 209, 
210. 

Librarians, schools for, 116; 
college women as, 245. 

Library work, for women stu- 
dents, 92, 96. 

Literary societies, as intellec- 
tual stimuli, 201-03, 209; 
friendships formed in, 204. 

Living conditions, dean's rela- 
tions to, 40-89; faculty su- 
pervision for, 262. See also 
Dormitories and Lodging- 
houses. 



Loan funds, awarded, 35, 98, 99, 
237, 238; need for, 97, 98; 
additions to, 146, 147, 164, 
239. 

Lodging-houses,supervision for, 
8, 36, 245; problems of, 41, 
71-77; prices in, 42; repre- 
sented on Self-Government 
Board, 137, 230; regulations 
for, 249. 

Loyalty, should be inculcated, 
175. 

Lundberg, Miss E., address, 
122. 

McCrae, Mrs. Annette, address, 
122. 

Madison (Wis.), vocational 
conference at, 122; intercol- 
legiate meeting, 148. See 
also Wisconsin University. 

Maine, girls' camps in, 101. 

Managers, college women as, 
113, 114. 

Manners, importance of incul- 
cating, 53. See also Courtesy. 

Margaret Morrison Carnegie 
School, curriculum, 17. 

Marriage, among college wo- 
men, 111. 

Mass meetings, called by Self- 
Government Association, 232. 

Mathews, Mrs. Lois K., dean 
at Wisconsin, 244, 249-51. 

Medicine, women engage in, 
111-13; college for, 117, 118. 
See also Public Health. 

Michigan, girls' camps in, 101. 

Michigan University, league 
in, 128. 

Middle Western Intercollegiate 
Self-Government Associa- 
tion for women, constitution 
of, 252-57. 

Miner, Georgia, treasurer of 
Self-Government Associa- 
tion, 238. 



INDEX 



271 



Minnesota, girls' camps in, 
101. 

Minnesota University, fresh- 
men organized, 169; chapel 
exercises in, 176. 

Mississippi Valley, colleges in, 
148, 252. 

Missouri University, vocational 
system, 116; home economics 
in, 118. 

Mistresses of dormitories, need- 
ed, 44; rooms, 50, 51; preside 
in dining-rooms, 52, 53; work 
through student organiza- 
tion, 57, 58; equipment for, 
197, 198; at Wisconsin Uni- 
versity, 247, 248. 

Moral growth, in university, 
171. 

Mortar Board, honorary so- 
ciety, 243. 

Mothers' pensions, importance 
of, 112. 

Municipal work, for college 
women, 122. 

Music, in college life, 258, 260, 
262. 

New England, summer employ- 
ment in, 101. 

New Hampshire, girls' camps 
in, 101. 

New York City, occupational 
bureau in, 106, 

Newspapers. See Press. 

Nind, Marjorie, president of 
Young Women's Christian 
Association, 240. 

Normal schools, administra- 
tion in, 113; problems of, 
132; relation to university, 
139, 145. 

Northwestern University, co- 
operative dormitories in, 78, 
79. 

Nursing, for college women, 
114, 122, 245. 



Oberlin College, women ad- 
mitted, 3. 

Occupational bureaus, 105-07, 
122. 

Ohio State University, chapel 
exercises, 176. 

Olivia Josselyn Hall, at Vassar, 
49. 



Palmer, George H., cited, 185. 

Pan-Hellenic League, officers, 
234. 

Parents, responsibility of, 174; 
cooperation desired, 187, 200. 

Peck, Ruth, on judicial com- 
mittee, 239. 

Personality, in deans of women, 
11, 12. 

Phi Beta Kappa, incentive for, 
201. 

Philadelphia, occupational bu- 
reau in, 106. 

Physical education, .for women, 
31, 32; gymnasium, 84, 244; 
teachers for, 120; values of, 
223-25; See also Athletics, 
and Health. 

Physicians. See Medicine. 

Plagiarism, explained, 180, 181. 

Playground work, for college 
women, 122, 133, 245. 

Point system, of regulating stu- 
dent activities, 154-56; or- 
ganization of, 233, 234. 

Politics, in college life, 258, 263. 

Pope, Eva, address, 122. 

Potter, Mary Ross, dean of 
Northwestern University, 79. 

Preceptress, title used, 1, 7. 

Preparation for college. See 
Freshmen and High schools. 

Press, training for, 116; in col- 
leges, 158, 159, 204, 205, 258 
comic papers, 158, 205, 206 
report college activities, 177 
daily newspaper, 206, 207 
women's work in, 207, 208 



272 



INDEX 



honorary society, 242; at Vo- 
cational Conference, 245; 
censorship for, 259, 262. 

Prices, for women students, 42, 
43; chapter-houses, 62; in 
rooming-houses, 74, 246; in a 
state university, 86; for liv- 
ing necessities, 94. 

Princeton University, student 
employment in, 90. 

Privacy, effect of, 50, 51, 54; 
lack of, 66. 

Prizes, valued as a stimulus, 
200. 

Probation, for students, 30, 153, 
183. 

Proctors, in dormitories, 57, 58, 
247; in chapter-houses, 62; 
in lodging-houses, 75. 

Professional education, impor- 
tance, 14. See also Vocational 
education. 

Public health, vocational op- 
portunity, 112. 

Public opinion, in coeducational 
institutions, 23, 24; dean's re- 
lation to, 25; state universi- 
ties, 25, 26; value of, 129-31, 
135, 145. 

Publications. See Press. 

Pythia, literary society, 234, 
241. 

Red Domino, dramatic society, 
234, 242. 

Registration, system for, 88, 89; 
aid in, 140. 

Reinking, Anita, president of 
Pythia, 241. 

Religious indifference, 185; in- 
terest, 186; needs, 187. 

Repplier, Agnes, cited, 225. 

Research, value of, for dean, 36. 

Residents, and non-residents, 
in dormitories, 59, 60. 

Rooming-houses. See Lodging- 
houses. 



Rooms, for students, in dormi- 
tories, 53-55; in chapter- 
houses, 62; in lodging-houses, 
71-77. 

Round Table, literary society, 
234, 241. 

Rules, submitted to Self-Gov- 
ernment Board, 231; in gen- 
eral, 235; for dormitories, 
247-51. See also Discipline. 

Rushing. See Greek-letter so- 
cieties. 

Sabatier, Auguste, cited, 186. 

Salaries, for mistresses of dor- 
mitories, 44, 45; for teachers, 
125; for dean's assistants, 
219, 220. 

Salmon, Professor Lucy, cited, 
210. 

Samson, Eloise, president of 
Euthenics Club, 243. 

Schoenleber, Louise, on judi- 
cial committee, 239. 

Scholarship. See Intellectual 
life. 

Scholarships, awarded, 35; in 
state universities, 91, 93, 98, 
99; for graduate work, 105; 
for high standing, 147, 201; 
raised, 164, 237, 238. 

Schoolhouses, as civic centers, 
84. 

Secretaries, college women as, 
114, 132, 245; for deans of 
women, 218-20. 

Segregation, in lodging-houses, 
73; in vocational courses, 118. 

Self-control, importance of,22L 

Self-Government Associations, 
begun, 5, 6, 127-29; execu- 
tive board, 26, 57, 62, 75, 76, 
230, 249; disciplinary powers 
of, 76, 178, 179, 188, 189; 
functions of, 81, 129-31; ac- 
tivities of, 123, 139-47, 156, 
162; training in, 131-33, 222; 



INDEX 



273 



social features of, 133-35; re- 
lation to men's organizations, 
136, 137; organizations of, 
137, 138; intercollegiate asso- 
ciation, 147, 148, 252-57; 
officers of, 154, 164, 230, 234, 
235, 239; in high schools, 179. 

Self-Government Association of 
the University of Wisconsin, 
constitution of, 229-35 ; off ers 
scholarships, 237, 238; rooms 
of, 244. 

Self-support. See Employment. 

Sellery, G. C, chairman of com- 
mittee, 263. 

Seniors, in dormitories, 52, 56, 
57; in chapter-houses, 63; re- 
lation to underclassmen, 83, 
145; aid of, in registration, 
140; duties of, 143; honor so- 
ciety, 156, 243; intellectual 
standards of, 199, 200, 210; 
in lodging-houses, 249. 

Sherrill, Jennie C, assistant to 
dean of women, 246. 

Simmons College, for vocational 
work, 17. 

Skinner, Rachel, on judicial 
committee, 239. 

Social life, relations of dean of 
women to, 37, 38, 134, 159, 
164-67, 192, 213, 216, 217, 
226; in dormitories, 43, 44, 
48, 77; organization of, 56- 
59, 235; sororities, 65; in 
women's building, 76, 84-86; 
among women students, 133, 
134, 150-52, 160, 172; enter- 
tainments, 140-42, 147, 161- 
63, 239, 240; subordination 
of, 152-54, 172; standards 
for, 157-59, 172, 229, 231; 
discrimination in, 161; re- 
sponsibility, 163-65; in state 
universities, 196, 197; fac- 
ulty relation to, 258, 260, 
263. 



Social science, teachers of, 126; 
courses in, 164. 

Social service, college women 
in, 114, 131-33, 185; training 
for, 116; organizations for, 
202. 

Social settlements, workers in, 
113; college should not be 
confused with, 152; experi- 
ence valuable, 216. 

Sophomores, in dormitories, 56, 
57; relations to seniors, 145; 
organized, 169; intellectual 
standards, 198, 200, 210; 
honors for, 200. 

Sororities. See Greek-letter so- 
cieties. 

Standard of living, in dormitor- 
ies, 42; of social life, 43; in 
chapter-houses, 65, 66. 

State universities, coeducation 
in, 5, 6, 118; deans in, 7, 8, 12, 
13, 35-39; vocational train- 
ing in, 17, 18, 115; public 
opinion in, 25, 26, 130; dor- 
mitories, 40-43, 47-49, 54, 
56, 59, 80; alumni, 60; chap- 
ter houses, 61; women's 
building, 83-87; prices, 86; 
student employment, 91 ; re- 
gion for, 106; training for 
social service, 113, 131, 132, 
225, 226; self-government of, 
124, 148, 179; part of state 
system of education, 139, 194; 
difficulties, 148, 156, 157, 
167, 176-78, 184; lack of class 
spirit in, 169; honor system, 
184; fostering ideals in, 185- 
87; intellectual standards, 
194-96, 198, 199; social life 
in, 196; press, 208. 

Stenography, for women stu- 
dents, 92, 95, 104. 

Stewardess, for dormitories, 45, 
46; duties, 85. 

Student Interest Committee of 



274 



INDEX 



Faculty, 250, 251; at Uni- 
versity of Wisconsin, 259-63. 

Student Judicial Committee, 
relations to dean, 20; consti- 
tution, 235-38; officers, 239. 

Students, living at home, 80-82; 
represented on Self-Govern- 
ment Board, 137, 230. 

Suffrage. See Equal Suffrage 
League. 

Taxation, for state university, 

177. 
Teachers, college women as, 

109, 110, 115; new forms of, 

112, 113, 120; salaries, 125; 

in high schools, 130, 132, 173, 

174. See also Faculty. 
Thesis, required for a degree, 

36. 
Theta Sigma Phi, honorary 

journalistic society, 242. 
Tolerance, in college women, 

222, 223. 
Town girls. See Students living 

at home. 
Trustees, guide educational 

policy, 29; committees of, 35. 
Tuition, in state universities, 

91, 177. 

Tutoring, for women students, 

92, 101, 102. 

Unity, among women students, 

229. 
Unsocial students, discussed, 

165-67. 

Vacations, employment during, 
101-04. 

Vassar College, organized, 3; 
curriculum, 16; vocational 
work debarred, 17; dormi- 
tory at, 48, 49; class spirit, 
169. 

Vocational college, suggested, 
117, 118. 



Vocational conferences, dean's 
relations to, 35, 106, 107; 
need for, 120; programs, 121- 
24; 245, 246; organized, 147, 
164. 

Vocational education, need for, 
15-17, 109; in women's col- 
leges, 115; in state universi- 
ties, 115-19. 

Vocational guidance, function 
of the dean, 36, 99, 106-26, 
167; reassignment of, 44. 

Weighted averages, policy of, 
153. 

Welfare work, administration 
of, 113. 

Wellesley College, cooperative 
dormitories, 78; faculty re- 
lation to students, 193. 

Wisconsin, girls' camps in, 101, 

Wisconsin, University of, dormi- 
tories, 40, 41, 57; women em- 
ployment, 90, 94; alumnae of, 
108, 109; vocational train- 
ing, 116, 117; vocational con- 
ference, 121-24, 245, 246; 
extension division, 123; self- 
government at, 127, 128, 137, 
148, 189, 229-35, 249; social 
life at, 142, 159; percentage of 
new students, 168; freshmen 
organization, 169; student 
council, 172; disciplinary 
system, 183, 235, 236; liter- 
ary societies, 204, 241; 
woman's building at, 244. 

Women, in higher education, 
3-5, 17; as teachers, 11, 109, 
110, 112, 115; opportunities 
for, 13, 14, 131, 132, 221-27; 
need vocational training, 15- 
17; mental diversity, 21; re- 
lation to discipline, 23; af- 
fected by coeducation, 24; 
rights of highest develop- 
ment, 28, 29, 191, 194, 210- 



INDEX 



275 



12; physical education of, 
31, 32; intellectual standards 
of, 34, 39, 209-12; discussions 
by, 38; self-support among, 
90-107, 111; in non-teach- 
ing professions, 108-14; re- 
lation to social life, 142; 
council among, 172; limita- 
tions of, 190,209, 210; in pub- 
lic life, 203; relation to college 
press, 207, 208; special prob- 
lems, 213. 

Women's Athletic Association, 
president, 154. 

Women's building, advantages, 
76, 83-87; described, 244. 

Women's Colleges, deans in, 
2, 9, 22, 28; organized, 3; 
changes in, 4, 5; supervision 
of, 6, 21; no vocational train- 
ing, 16; differentiation, 17, 
114, 115; initiative developed, 
24; public opinion, 25; dress, 
64; infirmaries, 87; self-gov- 
ernment, 127, 128, 139, 147, 



148; social life in, 133, 134, 
151; point system, 154-56; 
dramatic standards, 158; in- 
tellectual standards of, 191- 
94, 208. 
Women's leagues, as substitute 
for self-government associa- 
tions, 128, 129. 

Yale University, student em- 
ployment in, 90. 

Young Women's Christian As- 
sociations, in colleges, 140; of- 
ficers, 154, 164, 234, 241; aids 
in cooperation, 222; station 
matron, 239; purpose, 240, 
241; college women as secre- 
taries of, 245. 

Zillmer, Helen Jane, secretary 
of Self-Government Associa- 
tions, University of Wiscon- 
sin, 239. 

Zuehlke, Vera C, holds scholar- 
ship, 236. 



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